Enough acronyms for you?

Let me spell them out.

 

ETDBW – Easy to do business with (this link represents the first google citation for ETDBW in 1/21/2000.)

SAP – Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing (then why isn’t it SAPDP?)

B2B – Business to Business (is it just a coincidence or can it really be that google cites the first usage of B2B within 3 weeks of ETDBW?)

Seriously though, how can it be that an acronym that’s been around for over 14 years only now comes across my radar (Radio Detection and Ranging)?

Where have I been?

I’ve been busy!  But I do get out often enough to try and make new friends.  And by the looks of it, I’ve got new BFFs (Best Friends Forever) over at the eLogic Group.  They are the ones who turned me on to ETDBW this week.

While discussing a project that we’re looking to work on together, they shared a familiar scenario with me:

• Industrial Manufacturer loses control of their spare parts business as they tteotb (take their eye off the ball…I made that one up :-))

This scenario plays out everyday and it goes something like this:

1. A manufacturer innovates a new product, brings it to market and gains competitive advantage.
2. Their success in selling capital goods spawns a service business to do preventive maintenance and repairs.
3. Customers don’t want to use the Manufacturer’s expensive services but need the replacement parts in order to perform their own services.
4. Competition encroaches on the opportunity and offers 3rd party services and parts…which are just as good but cheaper.
5. Manufacturer warns the market against using “non-genuine” parts, which scares a few of their customers but most defect.
6. Fast forward a few years and the Manufacturer realizes that they’ve lost a high margin and high value part of their business…spare parts…and decides to reclaim it.
7. Manufacturer decides that they need to get into the “modern era” and become ETDBW and develop an SAP Integrated eCommerce website (first B2B and maybe later B2C)
8. They survey the market for an eCommerce solution and suffer sticker shock. OMG (oh my gosh) it almost costs as much money to put up an SAP Integrated eCommerce website as they project their first year’s total revenue to be.  It’s a non-starter.
9. Two years pass.
10. The problem doesn’t go away and Marketing, out of desperation, considers deploying a standalone (disconnected from SAP) website.  Sanity reins and Operations, who hear of this plot and are rotfl (rolling on the floor laughing), decide to see if things have changed in the market since the last time they tried to solve this problem.
11. They Google “SAP +B2B + eCommerce” and they find…b2b2dot0 (above hybris :-)) and think that what they’ve found is 2G2BT (Too Good To Be True)!
12. 90 days later they GoLive with only minor modifications to the OOTB (out of the box) solution and everyone lives happily ever after.

 

Funny that we’ve been helping manufacturers become ETDBW for 6 years now and I had no clue.

I hope to TTYL (talk to you later).

Sam

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