How to Optimize your Online Business Collaborations

As a manufacturer, importer or distributor, you are facingtoday's difficult business challenge in how to compete andsucceed in the Internet economy. Your traditional channelsof sales and distribution are being or should be recast totake advantage of the Internet and this implies new ways ofutilizing your reseller or channel assets.

While you and many other companies feel the pressure tosidestep competitors with a first-to-market advantage,there is little benefit in aimlessly building andimplementing e-commerce systems. Many companies are takinga haphazard approach to the Internet, trying to shoehornexisting business practices into simplistic e-commerce capabilities or worse, drastically changing currenteffective business practices.

A more sensible approach is to determine how to use theInternet to optimize and extend your company's establishedsales methods and align your e-commerce strategy with yourcompany's overall goals. The question is not whether youshould utilize Internet sales channels, but how can you doso in a profitable way without alienating your existingdistributors, resellers, dealers and clients.

But where do you start and what are the essential elementsof a collaborative commerce solution? Before embarking onan e-commerce strategy you need to ask yourself a fewimportant questions on how you will relate your businessneeds with those of your reseller partners.

The Gartner Group estimates that over 90% of manufacturers,importers or distributors do not sell their primarybranded products online. Why? The primary reason is channelconflict; fear of the consequences of going into businessagainst your own selling partners.

Therefore, typically many manufacturers or primarydistributors establish a website that simply helpscustomers gather product information and build a shoppinglist, which they can then take to the nearest physicalstore. Ultimately, your website does not close the sale andhas no visibility into whether these customers actuallypurchased your products from your reseller.

Not only do you give up the rights to a new revenue stream,but you also lose control over, and insight into, thecommerce activities within your own customer base.

But, what if you could provide customers with a unified andguided selling experience across your sales channels bypresenting a seamless selling experience to your customersand site visitors while integrating the value-add of yourreseller network? Your customers could access real-timeproduct information including pricing and availability through resellers directly from your web site and theirrespective web sites.

And what if your e-commerce system could ensure thatproducts were properly configured and orders routed to theappropriate sales partner? This way you would remainintimately involved in the e-commerce activities of yourresellers, while maintaining influence over the salesprocess and customer experience.

You must determine which of your sales channels to take tothe web. You may presently utilize multiple channels torespond effectively to your customers' needs such as your direct sales teams plus a mix of resellers, retailers,OEMs, and dealers who deliver value to your customers andstrategic value to you by providing you with global andvertical reach, logistics and additional value-addedservices.

It will be necessary to formulate an integrated strategythat provides a common infrastructure for all of thesesales channels that you take to the web and then provide ane-commerce infrastructure that integrates all of themwithin a single cohesive system.

This online collaboration will allow your activeparticipation in all aspects of your customer's sales andmarketing experience, from shopping and productconfiguration to fulfillment and feedback. Short-termrewards include reduced costs through process automationand efficiencies. Long-term rewards include increasedrevenue, greater customer and partner loyalty, and theability to create strong sell-side partnerships that helpdifferentiate products.

Your resellers want to work with you, yet an Internetbusiness strategy that does not consider all your relevantsales channels, including their sales and distributionmodels and related business processes is a recipe forfailure.