WO2002021352A1 - Method and system for e-commerce in a network - Google Patents

Abstract

In the conduct of purchasing transactions in business to business e-commerce between a plurality of purchasing customers (C1, C2, C3...Cn) and a plurality of suppliers (s1, S2, S3...Sn) goods and services offered from suppliers are entered into a product database (PD) in a content management system (CMS), in which all suppliers (S1, S2, S3...Sn) are entered into a supplier database (SD) and all customers (C1, C2, C3...Cn) into a customer database (CD). Individual items of goods and services in the product database (PD) are made presented to an accessing customer (C1, C2, C3...Cn) by customer selection and following completion of a purchasing request subsequent transactions including acceptance or rejection of the request, generation of a corresponding order with delivery instructions to a supplier, receiving and accepting invoice communications from the supplier, book-keeping and financial transactions, communication of invoice information to be accessing customer and transactions of payment by the customer and to the supplier, but excluding physical delivery of goods and services, are conducted by the content management system (CMS).

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR E - COMMERCE IN A NETWORK

The present invention relates to a method of managing purchasing transactions in business to business e-commerce between a plurality of purchasing customers and a plurality of suppliers of goods and services .

In practically all firms, companies and enterprises, from very small over medium-size to large corporations, conduct of various purchasing transactions for supplying the firm, company or enterprise with a multiplicity of goods and services needed for its core business is a vital part of daily business activities.

Typically, goods and services involved in such transactions could be defined as "non-critical"- goods and services, i.e. not directly related to the core business such as goods and services acquired for the purpose of resale. A non-exhaustive list of examples of such "non-critical" goods and services could comprise, e.g. office articles, furniture and equipment of any kind including data processing equipment and services in relation thereto, insurance, cleaning services, internal shop or building architecture, consumption articles like paper, envelopes and wrapping or packaging products, stationary, telecommunication services, travel arrangements, automobiles, fuel and other energy consumption, consulting and training services etc.

In the traditional conduct of such purchasing transactions the customer firm, company or enterprises will obtain supplies of such "non-critical" goods and services by direct contact with a plurality of individual suppliers, e.g. one for office articles, another for data processing equipment and still other for other of the individual types of goods and services mentioned above. Obviously, this traditional scheme results in a multiplicity of daily transactions in connection with communication of purchasing orders, receipt and acceptance of order confirmations, receipt of physical delivery of goods and control thereof with respect to quantity and quality and individual bookkeeping, financial and payment transactions for each purchasing order.

The object of the present invention is to provide a purchasing transaction method and system that will significantly reduce and facilitate the daily operations in connecting with purchasing actions as defined above and result in considerable savings in terms of internal expenditure as well as the expenses directly related to the purchased goods and articles.

According to the invention this object is achieved by a method of the kind defined, which is characterized in a) that a variety of goods and services offered from said plurality of suppliers are entered into a product database in a content management system operated by a content management provider thus serving each of said plurality of customers as a single supplier of said variety of goods and services, b) that all of said suppliers are entered into a supplier database in said content management system, c) that all of said customers are entered into a customer database in said content management system, d) that access to said product database by any customer entered into said customer database is controlled by inputting a secure customer identification by electronic data communication to said content management system, e) that individual items of said variety of goods and services entered into said product database and offered by any supplier entered into said supplier database are made presentable to an accessing customer by customer selection inputted to computer software in said content management system to control said product, supplier and customer databases, and f) that following completion of a purchasing request by an accessing customer, said request including any quantity of any selected individual item of goods and/or services, subsequent transactions in respect of said purchasing request including acceptance or rejection of the request, generation of a corresponding order with delivery instructions to a supplier of each selected item, receiving and accepting invoice communications from said supplier, book-keeping and financial transactions, communication of invoice information to the accessing customer and transactions of payment by the customer and to the supplier, but excluding physical delivery of goods and services, are conducted by said content management system by automatic and/or controlled operation of said computer software.

The main advantages offered by the invention for the conduct of purchasing transactions of the kind described can be summarized as follows.

By incorporation of the content management provider between a plurality of purchasing customers and a plurality of suppliers of goods and services demanded by the customers a virtually unlimited range of products and services will be offered to the customers from a single site, which vis-a-vis the customers may serve as single supplier of all products and services within the total range. In stead of addressing a plurality of individual suppliers a purchasing customer can obtain all supplies within the range offered from the content management provider and benefit from significant simplification compared to traditional purchasing routines.

By conducting all transactions in respect of a purchasing request from a customer, subsequent to the customer's completion of the request, by the content management provider, significant savings may be further obtained in respect of handling of delivery information, invoice acceptance and book-keeping, financial and payment transactions .

Thus in accordance with a preferred implementation of the method acceptance or rejection of a purchasing request and communication of invoice information to the customer are conducted in accordance with customer specifications entered into said customer database and including allocation of request identification, purchasing authorisation given to appointed individuals with the accessing customer, purchasing budget allowance for goods and service, terms for delivery and invoice acceptance and allocation of book-keeping information for use by the customer . Equally, suppliers of goods and services within the meaning of the invention will benefit from having direct access to the total market composed of the

^"purchasing customers and, thus be able to offer their goods and services at attractive and competitive prices, which will be an additional benefit to the customers .

Also in the content management provider's dealing with suppliers, individual sales and delivery terms may to a wide extent be integrated in the conduct of the method. Thus in a still preferred implementation generation of a purchasing order to a supplier of items of goods and/or services included in said request and receipt and acceptance of invoice communications are conducted in accordance with supplier specifications entered into said sup- plier database and including allocation of order identification and terms for delivery and payment.

In a further preferred implementation of the method access to said product database by a customer, selection of individual items of goods and/or services

* to be included in a purchasing request and completion of said purchasing request by the customer is conducted via the Internet by communication with a website operated by said content management provider. The invention further relates to a purchasing transaction management system for carrying out the method as defined above, said system being characterized in a) that a content management system is provided to serve each of said plurality of customers as a single supplier of said variety of goods and services, said content management system comprising a customer database storing all of said customers, a supplier database storing all of said suppliers and a product database storing a variety of goods and services offered from said plurality of suppliers, b) that electronic data communication means is provided to enable access to said product database by any customer stored in said customer database by inputting a secure customer identification to said content management system, and c) that computer software is provided in said content management system to control said customer, supplier and product databases and enable presentation of in- dividual items of said variety of goods and services stored in said product database and offered by any supplier stored in said supplier database to an accessing customer by customer selection, d) said computer software being programmed to enable completion of a purchasing request by an accessing customer, said request including any quantity of any selected individual item of goods and/or services and to control the conduct of subsequent transactions in respect of said purchasing request including acceptance or rejection of the request, generation of a corresponding order with delivery instructions to a supplier of each selected item, receiving and accepting invoice communications from said suppliers, book-keeping and financial transactions, communication of invoice information to the accessing customer and transactions of payment by the customer and to the supplier, but excluding physical delivery of goods and services .

Preferred embodiments of the system are stated in dependent claims 6 to 8.

In the following the invention will be further explained with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which fig. 1 is a simplified graphic representation of an example of typical conventional commercial purchasing actions, fig. 2 is a block diagram representation of main parts of a system according to the invention, fig. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating main features of the method according to the invention, and fig. 4 is a more elaborated diagram illustrating, by way of example, further details of the communication between the content management system , on one hand, and a customer and a supplier, respectively, on the other hand. In the diagram in fig. 1 serving to illustrate the state of the art with respect to conventional commercial business-to-business purchasing actions, each of a number of individual customers Cl, C2 , C3...Cn conducts purchasing transactions in respect of different kinds of goods and/or services by placing purchasing orders with each of a number of individual suppliers So, S2, S3...Sn, each of the suppliers offering a limited, specialized range of goods or services, e.g. one supplier for office consumption articles like pens, printing paper, computer diskettes etc., one supplier for cleaning services, on supplier for data processing hardware equipment and so on.

Typically each individual purchasing order will be prepared by an individual with the customer responsible for and authorized to conduct a specified kind of purchasing transaction and transmitted by that individual to a selected supplier for the kind of goods contained in the purchasing order. The transmission of the purchasing order is illustrated to be conducted via the Internet, but may obviously take place in any conventional manner, e.g. through conventional mail or fax, telephone or other telecommunication means . From the supplier an order confirmation including delivery and payment terms may be directed back to the customer, typically to the individual transmitting the order, whereas physical delivery of the purchased goods may be effected to a different individual or department with the customer according to instructions given in the purchasing order.

Upon receipt of the physical delivery the receiving individual or department will check the delivery for compliance with the order and possible additional quality criteria and, if the delivery conforms to the order and is accompanied by invoicing information, authorize payment to the supplier, or otherwise, attend to inform the supplier of any correction needed to remove a deficiency in the delivery. The invoice may be directed by the supplier together with the delivery or at some other point in time before or after the physical delivery and will end up in a book-keeping or accounting department of the customer responsible for financial transactions of any kind in connection with the purchase.

Given the fact that all purchasing transactions are performed directly between a customer, on one side, and a supplier, on the other side, it goes without saying that dependent on the total level of purchasing activities with the customer, significant expenses and efforts in terms of business infrastructure, manpower etc. may be required for the handling of purchasing transactions.

As schematically illustrated in fig. 2, according to the purchasing management method and system of the invention a content management system CMS is interconnected between the plurality of customers Cl, C2,* C3...Cn, on one side, and the plurality of suppliers SI, S2, S3...Sn, on the other side. In the content management system CMS each of the plurality of suppliers Cl, C2, C3... Cn are entered in a customer database CD and each of the plurality of suppliers are entered into a supplier database SD, as will be further detailed in the following, Whereas a product database PD stores all individual items of goods and services contained in the total range of goods and service offered by all of the plurality of suppliers .

The content management system operates a website WS which can be accessed for the conduct of purchasing transactions by each of the plurality of customers via the Internet. External communication from and all internal operations and functions of the content management system CMS is controlled by operation software OS forming an integral part of the system.

As illustrated in the flow diagram in fig. 3 a typical purchasing action according to the method of the invention is initiated by an individual emplyed with one of customers Cl, C2, C3...Cn accessing the website WS of the content management system CMS as a normal Internet communication routine. By inputting a user identification such as the name of the customer and a secret identification code such as a password, connection is established to a catalogue of all individual items of goods and services contained in the product database PD of the content management system CMS. To facilitate presentation of indidual items out of the total number of items contained in the product database PD, various search criteria may be applied, as known in the art.

Thus, a hierarchical search could be made by sequential selection of a major category of articles divided into a limited number of groups, each of which is again divided into a number of subgroups containing individual types of articles. As an example, if the purchasing individual wants to buy envelopes, she or he may first select the main category "office consumption articles", then "paper articles", the sequential selection ending up with selection of the particularly desired type of envelope.

Another search criteria, which could obviously be applied, would be a random text search, by which the purchasing individual inputs e.g. the first three characters such as "ENV" for the desired product and is thereby directly linked to the subgroup containing envelopes, possibly through an intermediate selection step, if the actual character combination occurs for more than one subgroup.

As will further appear from the following, a special advantageous selection method would be direct selection of and linking to a personal shopping list previously generated by the purchasing individual in connection with an earlier purchasing action.

By whatever search and/or selection criteria applied by the purchasing individual she or he will end up with selection of one or more individual items of goods and/or services contained in the product database PD and a purchasing request is then completed by selection of the number of each individual article and identify the article as a desired part of the purchasing action, which could be done in any way known in the art, e.g. by transferring the article identification to a virtual shopping cart.

Once the purchasing request has been completed a check will now be made in the content management system, whether the request can be accepted. In a preferred implementation of the method this acceptance procedure may be conducted in accordance with customer specifications specific to the actual customer. Examples of various acceptance criteria, which may be contained in such customer specifications will be elaborated in the following.

If it is revealed by the acceptance procedure that one or more criteria applicable to the actual purchasing action has not been met, such that there is a deficiency in the purchasing request, the content management system may, instead of just rejecting the request, communicate information about the deficiency back to the customer, so that the deficiency may be corrected by the customer or, eventually, the purchasing request be cancelled.

If the purchasing request meets all acceptance criteria applicable to the actual purchasing action on the basis of information contained in the customer specifications, an order is now generated to the supplier of each selected item og goods and/or services contained in the purchasing request. In connection therewith orders generated on the basis of a single accepted purchasing request may obviously involve more than one of the suppliers SI, S2, S3... Sn contained in the supplier database SD.

According to a preferred implementation of the method, also in the generation of an order to any supplier, information contained in supplier specifications contained in the supplier database SD may be take into account as will be further detailed in the following.

Once generated the order is transmitted to the actual supplier, which could be done by any conventional means of communication, typically by automatic e-mail transmission.

Typically, the supplier will now communicate an order confirmation back to the content management system identifying the items of goods and/or services contained in the order as well as the ordering customer together with information relating to the physical delivery of the ordered items and, in most cases, also price information.

The order confirmation as received by the content management system CMS is now routed back to the ordering customer.

Following the transmission of the order confirmation the supplier will next typically attend to physical delivery or the ordered goods and/or services to an individual or department of the purchasing customer, who could be different from the individual completing the purchasing request.

Moreover, the supplier will complete an invoice corresponding to the order confirmation and delivery, but unlike the physical delivery of the ordered items, communication of the invoice is effected to the content management system CMS.

Upon delivery of the ordered item a check will be made by the receiving customer of compliance with the purchasing request and the order confirmation and typically involving also compliance with quality criteria. The customer will then confirm delivery by communication to the content management system CMS or identify any deficiency in the delivery. In the content management system CMS an invoice acceptance procedure is now conducted on the basis of the invoice transmitted by the supplier and the delivery confirmation received from the customer.

If delivery of the items included in the order confirmation is confirmed by the customer and the invoice received from the supplier complies with the order confirmation, the invoice will be accepted, resulting in invoicing the customer and authorization of payment to the supplier. In this connection, as will be further described in the following the invoicing of the customer may take into account financial and/or book-keeping criteria contained in the customer specification forming an integral part of the information relating to actual customer stored in the customer database CD. The invoicing of the customer need not take place concurrently with acceptance of the invoice from the supplier, but could be deferred in time, e.g. be included in a monthly total invoice containing all purchasing actions completed for the actual customer during a specified preceding period.

The invoice acceptance procedure may also result, however, in establishing a deficiency in the invoice caused e.g. by lack of compliance with the order confirmation, objections received from the customer etc. and, if so, such deficiency is reported back to the supplier for correction of the invoice.

In the diagram in fig. 4 a non-limiting example of the conduct of certain parts of the purchasing action broadly explained above relating to the application of customer specifications individual to the actual customer as well as the application of supplier specifications individual to each supplier connected with the content management system is further illustrated.

The customer specifications for each individual customer entered into the customer database CD comprises a set-up section, a selection section, an acceptance/rejection section and a basic data section, all linked to a log in facility, to which the purchasing individual PI with the customer inputs the user identification of the customer and a password, which could be individual to the customer, but may also be personalized for any individual with the customer authorized to conduct purchasing actions with the content management system.

The set-up section may as illustrated comprise in addition to a general set-up facility a facility for change of password, which could be done at a regular or irregular basis, and data relating to the parts account scheme of the actual customer used for purchasing actions of any kind relating to goods and or services purchaseable from the content management system, data relating to budget levels for individual kinds of goods and/or services for each account specified in the part of the account scheme recorded in the customer specifications and authorization data specifying individuals with the customer authorized to initiate and conduct purchasing actions with the content management system, individuals in various departments of the customer authorized to confirm delivery of goods and/or services, and individuals authorized to extend budget levels for purchasing accounts recorded in the specifications. As illustrated by triangular symbols in the customer box in fig. 4 the individuals, to whom the various types of authorizations are given may be organized in hierarchical structures.

This set-up information serves to secure that various forms of deficiencies that may be identified by the content management system in connection with a purchasing request can be handled in an automatic, organized and efficient way, whether the deficiency is caused by the purchasing individual not being authorized to conduct the actual transaction, the purchasing request containing items, for which a specified budget level, which may be either a level specific for the purchasing individual or a level specific to the type of goods and/or services, is exceeded. As already mentioned the response by the content management system to detection of a deficiency in a purchasing request will involve communication of information on the deficiency to an individual with the customer, who in accordance with the hierarchically structured authorization information is capable of dealing with the particular deficiency. Such a communication may be automatically generated by the content management system and transmitted to the customer by rapid, but secure means of communication such as e-mail. The acceptance/rejection section of the customer specifications comprises information relating to the procedures to be applied by the customer to confirm delivery of items contained in accepted purchasing requests or respond to communication of a defiency in a purchasing request, which could be either confirmation of the request possibly combined with an extension of the actual budget level, if needed, or cancellation of the request. The basic data section of the customer specifications will typically cotain accumulations of all data needed for recording purchasing requests completed by any individual with the customer, e.g. for invoicing purposes . This may include finance or book-keeping records for incorporation of individual purchasing actions during a specified period into monthly invoice statement specifying individual purchases organized in accordance with the customer specifications such as the individual accounts in the recorded part of the customers account scheme. Moreover, this section may include statistical information relating to the customer's purchasing activities, which would be of benefit in assisting the customer with the preparation of future purchasing budgets.

The selection section of the customer specifications comprises various items for the conduct of purchasing actions, which in addition to access to the total catalogue of goods and services contained in the product database PD may include the virtual shopping cart mentioned in the foregoing, records relating to previous completed purchasing requests for the customer, shopping lists personalized for any authorized individual with the customer and updated information on actual special purchasing offers to be presented to the customer when accessing the content management system.

In the example illustrated in fig. 4 the supplier specifications individual to any supplier connected with the content management system comprises a set-up section with general set-up conditions and a facility for change of password as used by the supplier S for accessing the content management system, e.g. to change data with respect to goods and/or services offered by the supplier and stored in the product database PD such as new product versions, correction of prices, inputting special offers etc.

The supplier specifications also stores data relating to the routines applied by the supplier for acceptance and confirmation of orders received from the content management system and comprises a basic data section for recording and accumulation of data used for financial and book-keeping routines with respect to orders completed by the supplier, statistical data, and all goods and/or services from the actual supplier stored in the product database PD.

All data and information contained in the customer and supplier specifications, respectively, are accessible by the individual customer or supplier, to whom the specifications apply and may be changed by the customer or supplier, although for certain data or information with the consent of the content management provider operating the content management system.

The operational and structural details of the method and system according to the invention illustrated in the drawings and explained in the foregoing are only typical examples of implementation and deviations therefrom could easily be devised with in the scope of the invention.

Claims

P A T E N T C L A I M S

1. A method of managing purchasing transactions in business to business e-commerce between a plurality of purchasing customers (Cl, C2, C3...Cn) and a plurality of suppliers (SI, S2, S3...Sn) of goods and services , c h a r a c t e r i z e d in a) that a variety of goods and services offered from said plurality of suppliers are entered into a product database (PD) in a content management system (CMS) operated by a content management provider thus serving each of said plurality of customers as a single supplier of said variety of goods and services, b) that all of said suppliers (SI, S2, S3...Sn) are entered into a supplier database (SD) in said content management system (CMS) , c) that all of said customers (Cl, C2, C3...Cn) are entered into a customer database (CD) in said content management system (CMS) , d) that access to said product database (PD) by any customer entered into said customer database (CD) is controlled by inputting a secure customer identification by electronic data communication to said content management system (CMS) , e) that individual items of said variety of goods and services entered into said product database (PD) and offered by any supplier entered into said supplier database (SD) are made presentable to an accessing customer (Cl, C2, C3...Cn) by customer selection inputted to computer software (OS) in said content management system (CMS) to control said product, supplier and customer databases (PD, SD, CD) , and f) that following completion of a purchasing request by an accessing customer, said request including any quantity of any selected individual item of goods and/or services, subsequent transactions in respect of said purchasing request including acceptance or rejection of the request, generation of a corresponding order with delivery instructions to a supplier of each selected item, receiving and accepting invoice communications from said supplier, book-keeping and financial transactions, communication of invoice information to the accessing customer and transactions of payment by the customer and to the supplier, but excluding physical delivery of goods and services, are conducted by said content management system (CMS) by automatic and/or controlled operation of said computer software (OS) .

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that acceptance or rejection of a purchasing request and communication of invoice information to the customer are conducted in accordance with customer specifications entered into said customer database (CD) and including allocation of request identification, purchasing authorisation given to appointed individuals (PI) with the accessing customer, purchasing budget allowance for goods and service, terms for delivery and invoice acceptance and allocation of book-keeping information for use by the customer .

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, c h a - r a c t e r i z e d in that generation of a purchasing order to a supplier (S) of items of goods and/or services included in said request and receipt and acceptance of invoice communications are conducted in accordance with supplier specifications entered into said supplier database (SD) and including allocation of order identification and terms for delivery and payment

4. A method as claimed in claim 1, 2 or 3, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that access to said product database by a customer, selection of individual items of goods and/or services to be included in a purchasing request and completion of said purchasing request by the customer is conducted via the Internet by communication with a website operated by said content management provider.

5. A system for managing purchasing transactions in business to business e-commerce between a plurality of purchasing customers (Cl, C2, C3...Cn) and a plurality of suppliers (SI, S2, S3...Sn) of goods and services, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in a) that a content management system (CMS) is provided to serve each of said plurality of customers (Cl, C2, C3...Cn) as a single supplier of said variety of goods and services, said content management system (CMS) comprising a customer database (CD) storing all of said customers, a supplier database (SD) storing all of said suppliers and a product database (PD) storing a variety of goods and services offered from said plurality of suppliers, b) that electronic data communication means is provided to enable access to said product database

(PD) by any customer stored in said customer database (CD) by inputting a secure customer identification to said content management system (CMS) , and c) that computer software (OS) is provided in said content management system to control said customer, supplier and product databases (CD, SD, PD) and enable presentation of individual items of said variety of goods and services stored in said product database and offered by any supplier stored in said supplier database to an accessing customer by customer selection, d) said computer software being programmed to enable completion of a purchasing request by an accessing customer, said request including any quantity of any selected individual item of goods and/or services and to control the conduct of subsequent transactions in respect of said purchasing request including acceptance or rejection of the request, generation of a corresponding order with delivery instructions to a supplier of each selected item, receiving and accepting invoice communications from said suppliers, book-keeping and financial transactions, communication of invoice information to the accessing customer and transactions of payment by the customer and to the supplier, but excluding physical delivery of goods and services. '

6. A system as claimed in claim 5, c h a r a c - t e r i z e d in that for acceptance or rejection of a purchasing request, and communication .of invoice information to the customer said customer database

(CD) stores customer specifications including allocation of request identification, purchasing authorisation given to appointed individuals with the accessing customer, purchasing budget .allowance for goods and service, terms for delivery and invoice acceptance and allocation of book-keeping information for use by the customer.

7. A system as claimed in claim 5 or 6, c h a - r a c t e r i z e d in that for generation of a purchasing order to a supplier of items of goods and/or services included in said request and receipt and acceptance of invoice communications said supplier database (SD) stores supplier specifications including allocation of order identification and terms for delivery and payment.

8. A system as claimed in claim 5, 6 or 1 , c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that said content management system comprises a website (WS) accessible via the Internet by a customer for access to said product database, selection of individual items of goods and/or services to be included in a purchasing request and completion of said purchasing request.