Across all 10 GXS global web sites, white papers are by far the most downloaded items versus any other source of literature. As a tool for our customers, white papers are usually more fact based, provide less bias, and offer significantly more specific technical depth. Often they are authored third parties, such as our most popular download written by Stanford University.

This week we launched our first e-Book which we believe will become the predominate replacement for conventional printed white papers. The cross-reference capabilities, portability, and green benefits (though e-books do require power) are compelling. We will be measuring downloads and click-throughs over time to gauge customer interest. Expect many more e-Books to come!

Check out GXS’s first e-Book is on Electronic Invoicing at www.gxs.com/eBooks/eInvoicing/.

To learn more about e-Books, check out the e-Book wiki at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book.

To try out a great e-Book reader, go for the Kindle at amazon.com.

Bobby

This week GXS participated in SAPPHIRE, SAP’s annual customer event. We debuted GXS Trading Grid for SAP (with official endorsement from SAP with SAP NetWeaver Certification). Our investments in SAP started accelerating about a year ago almost entirely at the request (actually the imploring) of many of our enterprise customers.

I was not certain what to expect from this event. Every year we build a marketing plan that spans events and tradeshows worldwide, primarily driven by geography (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan, China, Australia, Korea and so on), by industries (retail, consumer goods, high-tech, automotive, financial services) and alongside our partners (Microsoft, Verizon, and many others)

Often when we attend an event for the first time, the return on investment is never easy to predict (after all tradeshows are really less about new lead generation than visibility and awareness). In such situations, we typically formulate a quick survey to at least get a good handle on the attendee’s state of mind and top issues. SAPPHIRE was no exception. Of course, with an appealing giveaway – GPS Navigator this time.

What we learned was shocking.
- 95% indicated that they trade electronically with less than 50% of their customers.
- A shocking 54% trade electronically with less than 10% of the their customers.
- An equally shocking 61% indicated that they trade electronically with less than 10% of their suppliers.
- Over 1/3 were involved in a major SAP upgrade and were concerned that the upgrade is negatively impacting their supply chain.

As I think back about the event, I had several reoccurring observations that somehow seem validated by the survey results. The event seemed highly internal enterprise focused, even when it came to supply chain management and supplier relationship management. How effective can a supply chain management system be if it does not have the information about what’s going on in the supply chain flowing into it? With the exception of the largest system integrators, every SAP consultant I met with really did not have a good practice for advising customers on supply chain automation or trading partner enablement or business-to-business process optimization in general. Too often I heard that customers have help desks that handle the supply chain enablement and automation!

Summing up the parts, customers have made substantial investments and commitments to their ERP technology. That was obvious based solely on so many senior executives from very large companies in attendance. All are thinking about improving the return on these investments but rarely has the thinking really extended outside of an enterprise’s four walls for competitive advantage. Of course, this brings a whole new world of complexity, loss of control and diversity of technical challenges. With so many customers stuck on the upgrade treadmill, finding available resources is probably a big culprit.

But, at some point, a distributor or retailer, for example, is going to need accurate, up-to-date information flowing into their warehouse management system. Advanced Ship Notice (ASN) processes, for instance, should be 100% automated with compliance rules that ensure smooth flow into any system. Or, event signals throughout the supply chain providing real-time track and trace to a transportation management system.

Only with deliberate automation that truly extends outside of the four walls of an enterprise (and I don’t mean via yet another portal) can an enterprise truly feed their hungry ERP system what it wants… clean, accurate, timely data and lots of it. As evidenced by our customers pushing us to SAP SAPPHIRE, those days are finally here.

Check out the conversation at http://www.retailwire.com/Discussions/Sngl_Discussion.cfm/12556.

Last week we unveiled research conducted with the Vendor Compliance Federation at their annual event. We studied the entire ASN process. Given the two great opposing forces, globalization-of-supply and localization-of-demand, the shipment advice process has never been more important. GXS Trading Grid volume data shows the dispatch advice, dispatch notice, and advanced ship notice are among the fastest growing B2B processes under adoption.

The research was quite conclusive. Lots of data quality issues. Also, interestingly we learned that the average PO has 4.4 changes. The PO change process is very manual with little to no adoption of the EDI ANSI 860. Also, the research indicated 2-5% of every keystroke in a manual process results in an error.

Definitely review Retail Wire. Great posts from Nikki Baird, Bryan Larkin and other.

The research findings are available at http://www.gxs.com/forms/0711_B4B_wp_VCF.htm.

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.

Our Customer’s Success is Our Success

This important statement is one of GXS Core Beliefs. It’s one that I heard fellow GXS’ers use this week over and over during one of our customer forums. It really reigned true when I listened to six Fortune 500 customers each give detailed presentations on the business performance benefits they get from B2B Outsourcing. These were proud moments.

I’d like to share a few other facts from this forum that really demonstrate movement in software-as-a-service and B2B outsourcing (without sharing anything under non-disclosure):
- There was a 1.6x increase in customer attendance versus 2006 (the event facility was at capacity so we actually had to have a live video feed into another facility);
- Customers from the Brazil, UK, Germany, and Japan joined, indicating broad adoption outside of North America;
- We introduced separate tracks this year for the physical supply chain and financial supply chain. Interestingly, there was more cross interest by industries normally represented in each chain indicating exciting new scenarios emerging!

At the end of our forums, we always hold a ‘+ / delta’ session….what worked, what could we change. An interesting ‘delta’ recommendation came up. The suggestion was why don’t we attack some of our competitors “outrageous” claims that they do what we do. My going mode has been to stay above that line and prove our leadership with real customers and successes…customers who proudly place their brand next to ours… such as our recent customer award winners. Still, it’s good feedback.

Maybe I’ll blanket www.gxs.com with our competitors names to improve search engine ratings like the practices of some small competitors… no way. That will never be our marketing strategy. We are focused on customers. We have the successes to prove it.

Bobby

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint and helping our customers achieve their equally eco-friendly goals. GXS Trading Grid® Ultra was designed with specific requirements to reduce the environmental impact of secure data center operations. Our ‘Green-by-Default, Design and Operations’ initiative represents an unmatched commitment within the On-Demand industry to helping achieve a sustainable environment. The initiative includes the following components:

• Green-by-Default. Technology partners for Ultra infrastructure are selected based on the contribution their technology has to green initiatives and their emphasis on reducing their carbon footprint. Fact: Trading Grid Ultra’s blade architecture design with software virtualization will reduce the number of servers and CPUs by over 50%

• Green-by-Design. Ultra is designed for peak loads, high-availability and disaster recover greatly reducing unnecessary idle operations. Fact: Ultra design will be ~25% more energy efficient than other distributed architectures that typically are only 20% utilized

• Green-by-Operations. Ultra reduces physical complexity greatly reducing our data center space and power requirements. Fact: Ultra will reduce data center air cooling load over 25%

With Trading Grid Ultra, GXS is eliminating energy-intensive traditional mainframe operations globally. Our ‘raised-floor’ data center space requirements will be reduced by over 90% by the end-of-2009 while supporting load and capacity anticipated to increase over 300% during the period.

We will provide more details shortly via a new Ultra microsite. However, I was so impressed with the foresight of our operations team to take ‘green’ in to serious consideration years ago when designing Ultra that I had to share some of the details early.

This morning we announced 2007 GXS Customer Award winners for innovation. I think it is a great sign that each year we get a longer list of spectacular customers entering the contest. It is also great to see these customers use the Grid as it was once only envisioned: a feature-rich, on-demand B2B integration services platform. Our panel of judges at AMR Research narrowed down the contestants to four winners.

They are tremendous stories of innovation. They are great success stories for our managed services and demonstrate huge value creation from B2B Outsourcing. Panasonic is using the Trading Grid to gain visibility into their global shipping processes to increase market share for Plasma sales in Europe and North America. At Tesco, they are completely digitizing their entire accounts payable and invoicing function. I can’t share the ROI numbers, but they are significant. It takes real courage to get to 100% automation! PepsiAmericas uses the Trading Grid for their customer data integration efforts so they can better serve customers regardless of requested format, transaction type and protocol. Finally, International Post Consortium is demonstrating great innovation by using RFID technology and GXS Trading Grid together to track-and-trace international packages throughout the European Union.

Underpinning all of these success stories (and the great successes of all of the other entrants that did not win but are still great) are some common elements. Real-time transaction flow (EDI, XML, Internet EDI, EPC, etc). Any-to-any message translation. Visibility and control applications. Document and message tracking. Intelligent Web Forms. And so on. And, underpinning those cool services is a power integration-as-a-service engine. An engine built with a powerful identity management (for secure identity, context, accounting and billing) bus, high-performance orchestration and introspection services for all messages, and centralized data stores, all on top of Trading Grid Ultra technology (with dual-continent fail-over offering the highest level of disaster avoidance). Okay, enough on the Grid.

For more info, check out our Customer Awards Page.