4. B2B Partners should
freely yet securely access their information in your systems
Imagine the situation where a customer is
in a distant time zone, and wants to place an order. In
a traditional fax and telephone-based relationship, the
customer has to wait for the supplier to arrive in the
morning to confirm the order can be fulfilled, which results
in loss of time (and possibly the complete order if it
is urgent and a local supplier can be found).
Time
is not only lost through difference in location, but
the additional messages that will need to go to and
fro between the two parties – even email will
not help solve this.
Time is lost daily even
if partners are based locally, when telephones are engaged,
regular contacts and account managers unavailable, etc.
In a B2B relationship, partners should be able to see
and alter information related to their transactions and
account management in your system, no matter what time
of day or night.
This allows business to proceed even when either party
is unavailable for whatever reason. Notification systems
can alert relevant employees that changes have occurred
when the business rules require.
Both parties save time and
wasted steps to complete a transaction to their mutual
benefit.
Also as a result of ‘self-administration’
the customer will have increased satisfaction at the
same time employees have a reduced workload. It may
seem paradoxical but provided a B2B web site is easy
to use, use feel more empowered since it is ‘their
data’ hosted in ‘your’ system.
Obviously such partners are exhibiting a higher degree
of trust and reliance, but will enjoy the consequent benefits.
More on security later …
When partners do contact each other
by phone or meet face-to-face, they can have ‘quality
conversations’ about new business or satisfaction
levels whilst the systems have enabled the necessary but
detailed ‘technical’ exchanges.
