I would like to follow up to Justin’s blog earlier today regarding the launch of Insights. Nice post complimenting the work of fellow GXS’ers.

While we send over 60,000 electronic newsletters to customers every quarter (no spam, customers can opt out anytime), we thought it would be good to create a dynamic and informational site focusing on major trends accessible off of .com anytime. We are confident Insights will quickly become the authority on business-to-business automation and integration.

Our competitors have done a great job historically showcasing customer successes and presenting important research. I think everyone would acknowledge the efforts EDS, CSC, Cap Gemini, and others have done detailing customer outsourcing successes. However, we feel our advantage comes from deep investments in technology, people and processes with an exclusive focus on B2B integration and best practices. Last week, our unveiling of new research from Stanford University on B2B Outsourcing was a clear indication of our commitment to world class research.

In this installment of Insights, we discuss the dramatic impacts from the next wave of Software-as-a-Service, SaaS 2.0. The feature presentation includes a video broadcast of GXS and AMR Research thought leaders discussing industry trends and opportunities. The video is available from a wide variety of subscription sources, YouTube, Google Video, V:Social, Sumo.TV, Yahoo Video and Metacafe. An Apple Podcast is available as well. And, the transcripts are available in English, French, German, Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin on Insights.

Insights features exclusive editorial content on Strategy and Execution, Global Business and Innovation in B2B integration. This issue features 10 postings with deep insight including the following:

Articles on Strategy and Execution:
What is Software as a Service?
What are the Business Benefits of SaaS?
How do SaaS Environments Work?
Introducing SaaS 2.0?
SaaS 2.0 @ GXS.

Articles on Global Business:
Ten Decades later: The Emerging B2B Market in China
B2B Strategies to Grow your Business
SaaS - The Biofuel of Automotive IT

Articles on Innovation:
The 1/2% Solution
What Can One Version of the Truth Really Do for You?

This is important turf for GXS and demonstrates the thrust of our commitment. We feel strongly that the SOA-based GXS Trading Grid is rejuvenating the traditional integration markets, improving operational supply chain intelligence, and helping our customers better serve their customers.

Be sure to listen to some of our experts and the experts from AMR Research on the video broadcast. The presentation was unscripted and unrehearsed. From the heart. You will see our real passion for B2B… and for our customers success.

Today, Stanford’s Global Supply Chain Management Forum released ground-breaking research on the benefits of B2B Outsourcing.

In marketing, when you conduct hard-core research that involves so many customers, you hope…but you never know how the results will turn out. Sometimes that is a risky scenario. I was never concerned that the results would not be positive, but the question was would the results really show the trend that we believe is happening. Will the results show the pain and difficult functions that we offload for customers everyday.

Early in 2007 GXS began the search for a partner with global capabilities, supply chain expertise, and a strong commitment to leading edge research. And, the independence of the research was very important.

We were looking to uncover the following:

• What are the elements of business value realized by companies that outsource B2B operations, where possible quantifying the level of benefits realized?
• What is the Return-on-Investment (ROI) associated with B2B outsourcing as it compares to other B2B initiatives?
• What are the best practices in B2B outsourcing that have contributed to achieving these results?

The results were stellar and conclusive. I could not be happier about the real business performance advantages customers are gaining from B2B Outsourcing. The managed services / on-demand / SaaS revolution will transform how companies purchase and use technology for the next 20 years. This research is strong validation.

We have posted the report in several formats, full research PDF, executive summary, and summary PPT. Check out the Stanford Research page on www.gxs.com for all the info.

I recently read a great example of the challenges understanding local demand, featuring the recently retired President of Carrefour in China, Mr. Jean-Luc Chereau. He used buying fish as an example. He noted that in San Francisco, fish is dead, filleted and packed. In France, the fish is dead but it’s whole; it’s on ice. You can see its eyes and see if it’s fresh or not. In China, he learned there are actually two ways of selling fish. The first is to display live fish. But, to his surprise following Carrefour’s entry to the Chinese market, frozen fish is actually preferred away from the coasts. This was because the distance between the area where they have fresh fish and the stores in middle and western China is so vast that customers are confident of frozen fish versus unfrozen fish, even if its fresh. Carrefour, a great global brand, is demonstrating the importance of being global and local.

Helping businesses take advantage of all of the benefits from globalizing supply while also equally ensuring customer-centric thinking, that is what GXS is all about. Some of the key ingredients to ensure successful business partner automation on a global scale include:

- Tools and access methods to GXS Trading Grid which are multi-lingual by default, including supporting double-byte character sets;
- A wide variety of enablement tools and access methods to include direct integration with a wide variety of accounting packages and desktop software used throughout the world;
- A Center of Excellence for Community On-Boarding experienced in enabling suppliers, customers, ocean carriers, 3PLs, etc. in nearly 60 countries;
- A Center of Excellence in ERP Integration with a Shared Message Gateway (SMG) platform specifically designed for direct integration using Web Services or JMS, a wide variety of secure FTP connections and SAP direct integration.
- Community support personnel available 24×7 proficient in over 20 languages;

Businesses should not underestimate the need for a partner that can support global needs today and into the future. Even regional grocers in the US are sourcing more from Central and Latin America, requiring Spanish and Portuguese support, or from the Asia Pacific regions as they expand product categories.

From a GXS marketing perspective, we spend a great deal of time understanding and supporting our customers worldwide. It helps that our marketing team is global with members in China, Japan, Philippines, and throughout Americas and the EU. Here are a few examples of our global efforts:

- We send out newsletters in seven languages segmented by industry (retail, automotive, high-tech, and financial services). These newsletters touch over 25,000 business professionals every two months.
- We maintain a local .com presence in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom and the United States. This makes it easy for a wide variety of non-English speaking customers (and supply chain participants) to easily obtain contact information, explore new services, obtain localized case studies, etc.
- We operate localized trading partner enablement seminars in countries around-the-world. For example, we recently completed localized training and enablement throughout various provinces in China, such as Guangdong, to support US-based retailer automation efforts.
- We participate in global standards development for a wide variety of industries and technologies on a global scale. For example, across the automotive supply chain, we work with AAIA, AIAG, Galia, Odette, JAMA, and VDA.

We all know the reality that the world is flat. We’re building our business, training our people, and investing in technology for our customers to win in the global economy.

Danke, díky, спасибо, gracias, grazie, kiitos, merci, 感谢, ありがとう, 고맙소, obrigado, thank you.

This week we were a proud sponsor of the US National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) annual conference. The sponsorship was alongside one of our premier customers (2006 GXS Innovation Award Winner) Miller Brewing.

It’s exciting proof of success when a service provider and a customer have such a strong bond working together that they both sell and market each other.

Last month, Consumer Goods Technology magazine (a terrific pub) posted an article that features in detail Miller Brewing’s use of GXS for B2B e-Commerce outsourcing. The work we are doing to automate their three tier-distribution model is all-encompassing. Check it out… in their words: Miller on GXS in CGT.