The hottest GXS unveils GE's e-commerce strategy m

GXS: Uncover GE's e-commerce strategy mystery

1. E-commerce strategy in the era of supply chain

time has entered the 21st world, and the theme of enterprise IT field is no longer e-ization, but external collaboration. The vision of world-class enterprises has shifted from the internal enterprise to the external supply chain, which is closely related to their own development and survival, that is, upstream and downstream enterprise contact and business collaboration. The world has begun to enter an era when supply chain integration is used as a means to jointly improve enterprise efficiency and create and increase the value of the whole chain

e-commerce also got rid of the development stage of the original simple information distribution center and providing original transaction matching, and entered the e-commerce strategy stage of communicating the internal system of the enterprise and the extended partner business in the era of supply chain

the characteristics of e-commerce in this period are the combination of internal procurement, sales and other business extensions with e-commerce platforms, and access through various means of EIP to realize EAI of business processes in the supply chain

2. GE's success

speaking of successful e-commerce enterprises, we generally see it enterprises such as Dell and Cisco in front of us, but it is traditional enterprises such as GE, GM and Wal mart that really have a great impact on the world's manufacturing industry

in October 2000, General Electric (GE) acquired Honeywell with an astonishing $45billion. Through interconnection, traditional companies reduced costs faster than dotcom increased revenue; The combination of Ge and Honeywell can rapidly expand the market through the online trading market, which is far faster than the speed at which dotcom achieves balance of payments

just a month before this acquisition, jackwelch announced that GE would cut% of its administrative expenses within 18 months according to the famous wolf's law. Thank you, Internet! Imagine that this is equivalent to saving $10billion a year

the successful merger of Ge and Honeywell will largely depend on the integration of the business operations and cultures of the two companies, but we also note that GE's very active and aggressive global exchange services GXS (global exchange services) within Ge will quickly help solve the inefficient problems in the merged supply chain and business operations. Ge plans to purchase $15billion this year through the global supplier network built by GXS. Dozens of Ge business units have begun to use this online trading system to operate, saving hundreds of millions of costs every year

the success of GE's overall e-commerce strategy is attributed to the behind the scenes support of GXS

let's take a look at GE's e-commerce journey in the past 10 years:

3. The key support of Ge e-commerce GXS

ge120 year successful history can be said to be one of the miracles in industrial history. But in the 1990s, GE's biggest challenge came from the Internet - based electronic trading market. GE's business units such as "GE Transportation" and "Ge supply" have found themselves in fierce competition with and. Obviously, the fate of Ge in the next 10 years will largely depend on whether GXS can help other business units compete with their B2B competitors and make profits through interconnection

gxs was formerly known as GE information services. However, GXS missed a good opportunity because it did not develop Internet based procurement software technology. Ariba, I2, commerceone, IBM and Oracle realized the importance of purchasing software and achieved great success

now, in addition to assisting GE's business units in electronic transformation, GXS has also established GE's private trading market. At the same time, by participating in the public trading market, GXS has quickly helped Ge seize the first opportunity of e-commerce strategy

gxs has three main business departments: 1) responsible for assisting customers who use EDI to use Internet based transaction technology; 2) The middleware service department is responsible for research and development; 3) The trading service department is responsible for the establishment and operation of B2B trading markets

4. Introduction and transformation of GXS

GXS was once accused of failing to keep up with the innovation and development speed of Silicon Valley. In 2000, the GE leadership believed that the era of great innovation in Internet has come to an end, and now it is time to implement it. In March, 2000, Ge injected hundreds of millions of dollars into GXS, making GXS the fulcrum of the e-commerce strategy of the entire Ge group. Now GXS can provide customers such as Chrysler and P & G with software, hardware, network facilities and consulting services, and help them establish their own trading market. The greatest value GXS creates comes from its ability to connect two worlds: connecting the traditional EDI system to the modern Internet

interconnection poses a great threat to ge business. If they do not provide buyers with new ways other than traditional sales channels, Ge business units may be forced to sell at low profit prices in the rapidly developing B2B electronic trading market. For example, in the publicly owned home appliance and electronic trading market, Ge home appliances may find its washing machine tied with whirlpool. These publicly owned B2B stations may threaten some of GE's advantages, forcing Ge to compete in price rather than brand and service

ge's response is that it is not in the public electronic transactions that it cannot control. With measures such as reducing production capacity, canceling ground bars, clearing and sorting electrolytic aluminum, staggering peak production and so on, it will increase the sales of products in the market, and at the same time, establish its own private trading market. The relationship between GXS and other business units of Ge returns to a business purpose of Ge again: do not rely on technology or trading platforms that do not belong to ge. GE's private trading network gives it a direct channel of communication with customers

gegsn, a private procurement platform established by GXS for GE, includes demand forecasting, contract Invoicing, raw material bidding sourcebid, logistics tracking and security, system management and other functions. At present, many groups within Ge have carried out procurement business on GSN, such as transportation, lighting, aircraft engines, industrial systems, medical systems, plastics, capital, supply, power systems, NBC, etc

also invested a lot of energy and manpower

the data conversion engine AI developed by GXS. Application integrator can receive and generate structured data in any format, including EDI, XML and application specific data formats. Multiple applications can integrate with each other without any modification to the existing data format. The electronic data sent by trading partners should be automatically imported into the computer mobile parts of enterprises for processing. AI has the largest market share of 35% in the global data exchange market

5. Development of domestic B2B e-commerce platforms

domestic enterprise e-commerce platforms are mainly built by industry leading enterprises. The functions of the platforms are mainly procurement and distribution. Its key advantage lies in the proficiency of enterprises in their key businesses. The representative companies that establish such platforms, such as Haier, Konka and Baosteel. B2B platform mainly provides three functions: 1 Provide the Buyer/seller directory, specifically provide the manufacturer with product/manufacturer directory, product/manufacturer search, enterprise procurement directory, etc; 2. Provide a trading community, which can realize negotiation, inquiry/price comparison, member communication, e-mail system, industry information and other functions; 3. Provide transaction services, such as order request, product configuration, bidding and auction, trade matching, system security, payment, order tracking, etc

however, domestic enterprises generally do not pay enough attention to enterprise e-commerce platforms. Only some large enterprises facing the international market have established enterprise private e-commerce platforms, and the platform technology and the quality of operators are relatively weak