If our objective again is to provide all users with a familiar experience where they can always find what they are looking for, then the internal catalog will need to guide the users to the right place. The user will then punch out to consume the data when needed to obtain the right specs and price (the assumption is that the punch out data is up-to-date, but we’ll save that for another blog). With external catalogs, the supplier is responsible for managing their site. So, where do external catalogs fit? External catalogs are largely used where prices change frequently (eg: commodities) and the company can’t keep up with the updates, or the company simply doesn’t want to manage the catalog content. The catalog is an underutilized tool for empowering users to make the appropriate choices and enter the correct data.Īs I mentioned in the opening, many companies may adopt a hybrid of both internal and external catalogs. For more complex items that require multiple steps or an explanation on procedure, the “how to” will guide the user through the steps. Lastly, many customers have used catalog content to publish “How Tos”. When a user enters the quantity, the right price will display based on that input. Also, the catalog data will show the contracted price scales so users know the thresholds to achieve pricing discounts. For example, catalogs can display rate cards that allow the user to determine the correct price based on the consultant level that matches the requirements. Not only does catalog content provide users with all the product and service definitions they need to make their purchasing decisions, including pictures, contracts, pricing, and availability – the typical catalog fare, but also the catalog content has been used quite effectively to guide users. With internal catalog content companies have tremendous control to help their users. The objective of the internal content then is to help users make the right product and service decisions, guide users to the right sources of supply (eg: contracted and approved suppliers), guide users to follow company policies when purchasing, and determine the right price. By taking the familiar, companies reduce dependency on training, increase adoption, and improve compliance. Where user experience has been the important requirement for users to make purchase requests without any training, the internal catalog content has been the best practice. Internal Content for a Better User Experience and Compliance We really haven’t seen a good technology that delivers cross catalog search and a unified user experience for external catalog content. In addition, the user will have a different user experience when they go to the external site where they often get confused by different color schemes, terminology, and process flows. The ability to do a cross-catalog search is limited. The disadvantage of course is that the user will need to know what catalog to access depending on the product or category. For external catalogs, the user at the buying company will “punch out” to a site that hosts the supplier’s catalog, perform the search in the external catalog, select items, and return the cart to the buying system in a round trip. Therefore, external catalogs have been used where companies do not want to manage the catalog. However, note that the catalog content management process requires some work to maintain the catalog data for internal catalogs. Cross-catalog search has always been a top requirement from customers for an “Amazon-like” user experience. A user does not need to know, for instance, which catalog or supplier to search for a given product. That is, if a user searches for a product, the search results will present the approved supplier(s) and pricing for that search. Companies go through this catalog content management process because they want to provide their users with a one-stop search for all products and services. Internal catalogs are catalogs where the data is obtained from suppliers, mapped to the buying companies’ category schema, approved, and indexed for search. So, how does one decide the best catalog strategy? Your company may in fact adopt a hybrid approach, a mix of internal and external catalogs. Catalogs will drive compliance to your company’s contracted and approved suppliers, but what type of catalog is best, internal or external catalogs? Although the question seems basic on the outset, the decision has many implications and the answer is not the same for everyone.
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