...We'll most SAP SRM or lets call generic eProcurement consultants typically find it very simple to implement a Standard External Punch-out catalog, thats because every one knows the obvious is to get all parameters from the supplier and maintain them in the OCI configuration area..
The 2 BADI's Catalog Transfer and Catalog enrich BADI provides place holders for UNSPSC to Product category mapping, UOM mapping and some other custom mapping all with-in the compliant and the max complications occur when we talk about formats of the handshakes like cXML
However, this blog is not for you to understand the technicalities but to hear about a few customer nags :) sorry customer requirements, some of which we articulated as solutions and some of which come from the wilder side of my thoughts
Variation 1: Whenever we punch-out to your site, we aren't sure which is the location that the product is being delivered from (we'll in reality most of the punch-outs don't tell you about delivery locations)....can you please ensure that the first thing on the search window is a ZIP CODE...then further enable the search for us.
Variation 2: "Can you guys provide us a map on your landing page, we want to select graphically, we also want that to function on our BlackBerry and iPhones...we'll that was a little too much, but certainly it was a serious statement from the customer...This is bringing another GIS project into an SRM project
Variation 3: "Can you ensure that you pass us a flag for certain items that we consider inventory, even if you don't as our business process needs it."
Variation 4: "Ensure that real-time price validation is done for a Shopping cart item created from a favorite saved at our end, not your end, we bulk order and hence cant punch-out all the time"
...there are wilder scenarios that I've come across, however, these scenarios are still with a One-to-One Customer to Supplier hosting, and not a B2B market-place.If I commence with the multi B2B hosted catalog market-place, you'd fume from your ears...just joking..nothing is rocket science...but you might want to go back and check a little more on the 4 variations laid out and share any from your side...
Happy Reading ....thanks....Tridip Chakraborthy, SME-SAP SRM
