Just in case you think I am about to review a new Star Trek movie!, I am actually going to draw comparisons between old and new generation car models and how some of the characteristics of these cars are similar in many ways to how GXS has evolved over the years.

The automotive industry has many examples of companies that have stood the test of time, not only in terms of how long they have been producing cars but also how long a particular car model has remained in production.  In 1967 the Chevrolet Camaro was introduced to compete with Ford’s Mustang, an era that saw many ‘muscle’ cars take to the streets in the US.  In 2007, Chevrolet introduced their vision for what the next generation Camaro would look like, taking strong design cues from its 1967 predecessor.

 

In 1967, Porsche was one of the leading producers of high performance sports cars. Today’s 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo stays true to the original and contains many styling cues from its early predecessor.  Porsche are one of the industry’s most profitable car companies and they have partly achieved this by sticking to a ‘tried and tested’ design.

 

The final example I want to refer to is the Mini. This car, when it was introduced in the late 1950s by the British Motor Corporation, completely changed how small cars were designed and packaged. It was also very affordable meaning that more people could take to the road for the first time. Today’s Mini, albeit produced by BMW, stays very close to the original design concept and because of this has seen strong sales growth in all major car markets around the world.

 

The interesting thing about all these cars is that the external shape of each has changed very little over the past four decades. Each generation or evolution of the afore-mentioned cars has seen significant improvements in terms of performance, economy, quality, reliability and even service levels at garages has improved considerably over the years. Like a fine wine, these cars have become much better with age but still manage to remain true to the original concept.   

GXS has been around for forty years as well, hence why I highlighted these particular car models, and it is interesting to draw comparisons between how these cars have evolved over time and how GXS has evolved over the same time period.  Each of the afore-mentioned cars was brought to market for a particular reason, similar to GXS who in a former life was responsible for setting up one of the world’s first private email networks.  GXS has successfully transformed itself from being a mere provider of Value Added Network services to becoming a leading provider of On-Demand B2B solutions and services. GXS provides global coverage and with the introduction of our Trading Grid Ultra infrastructure, customers and their respective trading partners now have access to a high performance and highly available B2B trading platform. 

Today’s cars also contain relatively complex engine management systems and they are not as easy to maintain as their 1960s predecessors.  For this reason you will probably use an authorised garage to undertake any repair or service work.  Similarly, GXS know that there are many companies out there today that do not wish to look after their own B2B and EDI platforms and so they think about outsourcing.  GXS Managed Services, as discussed recently by my colleague Mark Mixter in his blog, offers the complete solution for companies wishing to outsource their B2B infrastructure. 

There are many other companies and products out there that have ‘reinvented’ themselves over the years and GXS are a great example of this. Our Trading Grid infrastructure will continue to evolve and our next release will contain some exciting new capabilities, more about these in the near future.  So what will the next generation B2B trading platform look like?, well this is an area that I will be discussing at the Odette conference in Prague in a few months time, I will post some thoughts on this in the very near future, but in the mean time do you have any thoughts about what you would like to see in the next generation B2B platform?