November 29, 1999

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Build The E-Commerce Catalog
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The new class of catalog-management tools map other data formats into uniform Extensible Markup Language data. In addition, these tools "cleanse and normalize" catalog items, using common terms to describe and categorize similar items from different vendors. Finally, if a required item is not available in any of the catalogs, these tools search, extract, and bring back the item from other Web catalogs.

"This kind of tool has been the missing link in E-procurement; it provides real-time updates of catalog information for our buyers, with access to any product information from any Web site," says FastXchange's CEO, Jeffrey Kratz.

Automating the searching and updating of catalogs is expected to cut the number of procurement specialists at FastXchange in half--200 instead of 450. Procurement specialists help search other Web sites and find items that are not in the company's supplier catalogs.

Products that update and aggregate catalog items are loosely referred to as Web-content-management systems. In reality, they are a subset of the more sophisticated content-management and business process-integration systems. The catalog-management tools are intended to solve specific catalog search, update, and aggregation issues.

Nearly a dozen vendors are peddling products in this arena, each with its own set of unique capabilities. Companies that offer products include Agentics, Cadabra, CardoNet, Mergent Systems, OnDisplay, PartNet, Poet Software, Profile Systems, and webMethods. Other startups, including Dynamic Domain and Pharos Technology, are expected to unveil their wares shortly.

"Catalog update and aggregation is a critical piece in E-commerce and an absolutely important first step in the E-commerce flowchart, as buyers need access to up-to-date information to do comparison shopping," says Harley Manning, a research director who tracks content management at Forrester Research.

Torrey Byles, president of Granada Research, concurs. Byles estimates the market for Web-procurement and content-management software to be around $1.3 billion this year. Although neither Granada nor Forrester provides a specific dollar amount for the size of the catalog-management segment, industry experts say catalog management is an important and vital first step to making E-commerce workable.

The bottom line is that selecting the right catalog-management tools could be one of the most crucial decisions in establishing a successful Internet procurement and commerce site. Those tools will have to match the needs of particular businesses. In general, catalog-management tools should meet the following criteria:

• Map disparate data formats into a single industry format
• Cleanse and normalize catalog items into classes for a common and uniform view based on rules
• Aggregate and integrate catalog data into a central repository
• Update only changes, such as pricing and availability, to reduce bottlenecks
• Be able to cache catalog information locally
• Run on multiple operating systems

For example, take a site that sells wine from different suppliers. Several attributes, including name, color, vintage, and price, can be used to identify and compare offerings. However, some suppliers might list only two or three of the attributes. In another instance, some may simply classify their wines as red or white, while others may use many more color categories. Then there are acronyms that many suppliers use to describe their items.

The challenge is to create a common set of parameters and clean or normalize all items so they can be classified and categorized to present a common view. This helps buyers identify different offerings that fall under a single category.

Unfortunately, there is no single standard to help map disparate data formats, including electronic data interchange, and business processes into a uniform view. CommerceNet and several vendors, including Cadabra and Commerce One, are working on the Ecology of Collaboration standard; RosettaNet has put forward standards for the high-tech and computer industry; and several XML standards, including CBL, Ariba's cXML and Microsoft's BizTalk, are already in use.

The Ariba Network, an online-procurement marketplace with catalogs from hundreds of suppliers, requires all catalog and business-process data to be represented in the cXML format, an industry standard proposed by Ariba. The trading platform uses OnDisplay's CenterStage eContent product--which complies with the cXML interface--for extracting product information and catalog aggregation.

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Photo of Kratz by S. Peter Lopez

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