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When you engage in implementing e-commerce there are basically 2 approaches available
on the market today.
One option is to go for a completely 3’rd party standalone application, and then
commence in a custom integration with your ERP system. This might work well if the
sales functionality of your ERP system is limited, and you only need to maintain
the product data at the e-commerce application; however the latency might be longer
than expected. This approach does work well in terms of scalability and performance
since it can be hosted (and most likely are), but still lack on the ERP features
functionality.
Another option is to go for an ERP-system add-on, typically a web enabled module
that is executed inside the ERP system framework it-self (Such as the Axapta Enterprise
portal and similar). With this option integration is not an issue at all since its
already going on inside the ERP. However performance and security might be an issue.
If you all of a sudden have more customers than expected it will have an
impact on your ERP system performance. If you plan to expose this application to
anonymous users, or directly to the internet, consider that you in fact are exposing
your ERP system directly to the internet!
With Enyo Commerce we have made an e-commerce application framework that
has the advantages of both approaches, but neither of their weaknesses. It is a
standalone system, but with the ability to understand and utilize the advanced underlying
features of the ERP system, so far we support a range of systems such as Dynamics
AX, NAV and Microsoft XAL and C5.
Furthermore even with a tight coupling to the ERP system’s data model and functionality,
we can still operate completely detached from the ERP system, making it able to
be hosted in a number of different ways; from a shared web server, in a dedicated
web farm or even in the cloud, such as the Microsoft Windows Azure.
This makes it flexible, affordable, secure and scalable, and with all your advanced
business features exposed by your ERP system.
Understanding the ERP System
The simple most important thing when you engage in implementing B2B ecommerce is
to have a unified business model.
Enyo Commerce understands your ERP systems business rules and features out-of-the-box,
and is able to do what your ERP system does. It’s not just mapping data, but it
actually replicates the functionality as well, saving on implementation cost, and
optimizing the online business to your needs.
Enyo Commerce functions in a hosted, isolated environment. This means the E-commerce
system will continue to function even if your ERP goes offline, and vice versa,
and that attacks and/or heavy loads on the e-commerce will not affect the performance
of your ERP system.
Special customizations to your ERP are similarly easy to replicate, since the underlying
functionality in Enyo Commerce already works the same way, just optimized for e-commerce
purposes.
Minimize your maintenance efforts
To save time and money, and avoid manual processing as much as possible, it is
crucial to only maintain one kind of data once.
With Enyo Commerce you have all the master data from your ERP system right in the
e-commerce application. Products, Customers, Pricing as well as all other business
relevant data do always originate from your ERP. Additionally you will be able to
add information (images, documents, additional properties) to the data on the fly
without modifying your ERP system or the data in it. This additional information
might be used to optimize the display to your customers.
Optimizing the flow of sales
When orders are completed in Enyo Commerce they are immediately transferred to
the ERP system with all details and with minimal latency. The system can be set
up to automatically commit orders as soon as they arrive in the ERP system or wait
for a confirmation of your sales staff. The goal is to confirm or decline orders
as quickly as possible in order to reflect inventory updates in the e-commerce application
with minimum delay.
For most B2B businesses this is an important factor for providing a solid service
for their customers
Empower your customers with self-service
With Enyo commerce your customers can easily follow the chain of events following
giving an order to you. All relevant data for a given order can be found in the
self-service section of the application, this includes:
- Order Requests,
- Confirmations,
- Delivery Notes and Tracking Features,
- Invoices
- Account Statement
All this data can be downloaded and the Account statement viewed and checked to
confirm you received the customer’s payment.
Be SOA Enabled
With Enyo Commerce, all business functionality concerning Product/Price information,
Ordering and Self-service information can be accessed through the built in Service
Layer API, giving you the possibility to let your customers implement their own
automation for ordering and retrieving information.
All though it can be disabled, it is all exposed and offered as an option by standard.
The Service layer use all the same business functionality as the Web Application,
ensuring personal prices, delivery information etc. on a per-user basis. All this
means that you by default are SOA enabled and ready for e-business out-of-the-box.
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