As a supplier,
you might often wonder whether your business should be ‘PunchOut ready’.
Offering PunchOut capabilities can have several advantages. For instance you
can make it simpler for your customers to do business with you. It enables you
to better communicate with your buyers.
However, the
PunchOut catalog is maintained on the supplier’s side. That means you have to
take the full responsibility about everything related to PunchOut solution that
you are offering to your customer. So the question that arises is, whether it
is necessary to implement PunchOut. Following are the factors that you need to
consider before you decide to introduce this PunchOut feature.
6 Reasons you should Implement
PunchOut Catalog
When you are dealing with B2B or B2G Customers
Large
corporations or Federal, State, and Local governments will prefer to do
business with you, only if you are ready to provide PunchOut catalog. In fact,
quite a few suppliers are providing PunchOut capabilities in order to retain
some of their biggest customers. With a PunchOut, suppliers find it much easier
to handle orders placed by buyers. For buyers with Ariba procurement system,
the use of Ariba PunchOut catalog helps
in improving the efficiency of their procurement process.
When you have a Dynamic Catalog
If you are
providing a catalog of static information and fixed pricing then making your
website ‘PunchOut ready’ is not required. The buyer can easily import such
static catalogs through their procurement system. However, in case you have a
dynamic catalog whose content changes rapidly or frequently, it is necessary to
make your website PunchOut enabled. This is because PeopleSoft PunchOut
catalogs are dynamic, so any changes in your catalog can be directly
accessed by the buyer in real time. In other words, you are able to provide
real time price, description and availability of products.
When your Product Catalog is Huge
When your
catalog contains a large number of products, updating such a catalog that is in
CIF format can be a nightmare. Updating a CIF catalog is a multi-step process
and requires a lot of manual work. For instance, adding or deleting a product
will require replacement of the entire CIF catalog, which is very time
consuming, particularly when you have thousands of products. On the other hand,
a SAP PunchOut catalog supports dynamic
update means you can make changes in catalog in real time without republishing
the entire catalog.
When you Offer Highly Configurable Products
In case, your
business deals with highly configurable products such as IT products, you need
to opt for a PunchOut catalog. For instance, in case your buyer selects a
laptop, you can offer him options like disk space, monitor size, and memory in
order to configure the product. With a SciQuest PunchOut catalog,
you can provide your customers the flexibility to specify the configuration before
purchasing.
When your Catalog Contains Products with Extensive
Documentation
If your
catalog contains product reviews, customer testimonials and user guides for
majority of products, you need to implement a cXML
PunchOut catalog. Documents enables buyers to compare products and
take a decision that best suits their requirements. So if you want to make the
document work easily accessible to your buyers, ensure that your website
provides PunchOut capabilities.
When you want to ensure Contract Compliance
For every B2B
customer, you will be having specific pricing agreements. Using a Coupa PunchOut catalog,
you can ensure that the buyer will always view the product and pricing that is
in compliance with the contract or agreement. No wonder, PunchOut solutions
help to improve contract compliance, leaving no scope for shopping errors. For
instance, you may want to provide discounts or special offers to a specific
customer in accordance with the contract. All this can be easily implemented to
offer a personalized shopping experience to every customer.
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