John W Mullins argues through "The New Business Road Test" that

1. Markets consists of customers having the willingness and ability to buy products and/or services to satisfy wants and needs.
2. Industries consists of sellers that offer products and/or services that are similar and close substitutes for one another.

So, which markets does ebdex serve? We are sector independent.

So which industries do we fall into? Primarily document exchange and secondarily EIPP.

Tags: ebdex, EIPP, John W. Collins,  Document Exchange

In B2B, any business should be about resolving pain(s) suffered by customers in your target market sector. So what are some of the characteristics of ebdex’s target market, in terms of larger customers?

1. Profit margins are under threat due to globalisation and other socio-economical factors including threats from new market entrants.

2. Cost conscious and profitability driven: Always looking for ways to reduce operating costs and outsource non-value adding processes and functions.

3. Suffers from high transaction costs due to outdated labour intensive paper based processes with multiple organisational layers.

4. High transaction volumes due to the sector they operate in and business model with large number of trading partners resulting in high transaction processing costs, delays and disputes.

5. Having strengthened customer facing end, now looking to stream-line back office functions as part of performance improvement initiative.

6. Businesses going through change due to M&A, new management, corporate turnaround, forthcoming trade sale and/or IPO looking for rapid technological solutions for cost reductions and process improvements.

7. Imbalance of resource utilisation for dispute resolution vs. transaction processing triggering need for cost reduction.

8. Infrastructure projects where companies join forces to deliver a common outcome. These projects require solutions that could be implemented rapidly without high capital expenditure and usable by all parties concerned without much cost or training.

Tags: ebdex

My vision is to truly create a company that puts customer loyalty above everything else. We can only begin to talk about customer loyalty after we achieve customer satisfaction. Let’s get this straight: loyal customers are those who continue to use the services you offer at a price that allows you to cover your costs and make a decent profit (after all, business is about wealth creation for all those involved). You know a customer is loyal when s/he renew the product/service contract or subscribe to new relevant products/services you bring to the market. Customer loyalty in my opinion is close to black and white. Whereas customer satisfaction could be misleading as companies tend to rely on surveys to establish the level of customers’ satisfaction. If you had a bad morning before responding to a survey, the survey might give you an opportunity to get your frustration out! And there are many other reasons why most of customer satisfaction surveys fail. Yet they remain today as a useful indicator of corporate success. These surveys if implemented correctly are useful in terms of developing new solutions and understanding problems with existing solutions. After all, without customer feedback, your success will not last very long.

But you cannot even begin to achieve customer satisfaction nor customer loyalty without having the right team with the right attitude. This raises the issue: is the team more important than the customer? Both are so intertwined, it is difficult to have one without the other. People buy from people who they can trust (read John Clough‘s recent article). You cannot achieve trust overnight. It is something you need to work on. Once the organisational culture is geared to achieve customer loyalty, from the developer to the sales person and the customer service personnel, this vision becomes easier to achieve.

But we also need to understand the market. One way to achieve this is getting closer to the customer. But we also must know how the market is changing. Change is usually created by new solutions that are more cost effective or operationally superior than incumbent solutions (and there are disruptive solutions that challenge the market). These may be easier to implement, less costly, address corporate pains better or may have the features that customers like. Those who drive or stay close to the drivers will make a success. As most trends tend to last only until the new trend comes along (I am glad we are not in B2C market)!

To summarise, my vision is to create a company who understands the customer and market. And we need individuals who can help me/us achieve this vision.

Tags: ebdex

We are currently in the process of populating the ebdex Knowledge Base. We will begin registering clients on to ebdex Document Exchange, as soon as there is sufficient information within the knowledge base. For access to ebdex Knowledge Base (and interact with ebdex and other users of ebdex Document Exchange), please visit http://www.ebdex.co.uk/forum.html to register.

For trialling ebdex Document Exchange, you need to complete the on-line registration form (now simplified after receipt of initial comments). Please note that ebdex Knowledge Base is only opened to clients who have registered for use of ebdex Document Exchange for exchange of structured documents with their trading partners.

Tags: ebdex, ebdex Document Exchange, ebdex Knowledge Base, Forums

I was hoping that I and others would get to know a particular accountancy software vendor better through their corporate blog, which was launched few months back. The articles on recruitment published by their CEO was great! But they seem to be talking more about Microsoft Products than their own company and their own product portfolio. I for one would like to hear about their product road map, various technologies they are looking at (e.g. web services, SOA, etc), financials, what’s hot within the company, how great the company is, their growth strategies, etc (whatever they feel comfortable letting others know).

I have been blogging since April first through blogger and then through wordpress. The idea was to promote ebdex, the industry we are operating in (document exchange and EIPP) and I as an individual. I felt this was important as we are a start-up. And it seems to be working (let me know if you think otherwise – It is important to get feedback from my readers). I am yet to build a faithful readership. I know one or two are regular visitors to my blog.

We made ebdex Document Exchange available for commercial trialling few days ago and at that point felt that a corporate blog dedicated to just ebdex was needed. And we launched http://ebdex.wordpress.com. The reason is that the corporate blog will only talk about ebdex and nothing else. My blog will continue to talk about whatever I am interested in. As we grow, more employees and Trusted Partners will be given access to publish articles through corporate blog. But it should not talk anything other than ebdex. Anything I publish in corporate blog will also be published here. So I maintain continuity.

I was talking about this recently with Dave Stephens of Coupa, who released their Open Source e-Procument platform recently. Dave is doing great and guess what! He is thinking of establishing a corporate blog in addition to his very successful blog, Procurement Central. He just published their first month statistics. Great stuff Dave. Keep the information free! Blogging is great – how else could you tell the whole world how great you are doing! Don’t forget it works in the opposite way as well!

So what is the idea behind our corporate blog? The initial idea is we will use it for all company related announcements (the corporate website is a static website – it is much easier and quick to publish through a blog). We can also use it to educate our customers in terms of how best to use it. We can also use it to justify why we have taken a certain route (e.g. why is the registration page so long! comment already received suggested that he was put off by the long registration process!). In addition, launching of new products and features will be first announced through the blog.

What are your views? What would you like to see in our corporate blog? Do you like me to cover anything else in this blog? Do express yourself! Or do you think this is all waste of my time and yours?

Tags: ebdex, Coupa, Blogging, Procurement Central, Blogger, WordPress, ebdex’s Blog, Dave Stephens, statistics,

Sam Sethi has just launched the UK version of TechCrunch. TechCrunch has been influential in promoting new start ups and is widely read by many who is interested in new technology. Sam speaks about VC and Angel market in UK (I have first hand experience in attempting to raise VC funding – my impression is that VCs are as risk averse as the bankers! I know there are differing viewpoints especially from the VCs):

A number of people, including myself, recently got together to determine if there was something we could do to resolve the situation or at the very least change the status quo. As a group we asked ourselves why and more importantly how does Silicon Valley continue to produce so many new start-ups. The why factor we felt centred around the American “can do, will do” cultural mentality which differs from the UK “can do, may do”. Thus the number of people in the UK with a “will do” mentality is a much smaller pool which in-turn reflects in the fewer UK start-ups that consequently appear on the Angel VC radar.

The how factor though was slightly harder to determine but we concluded that a number of factors had came together last year – cheaper better software coupled with cheaper faster bandwidth – which had lowered the initial start-up costs, thus enabling many more entrepreneurs to prove their idea in the real world prior to seeking funding. At the same time there were also cheaper easier content creation tools appearing; namely wikis & blogs and one in particular TechCrunch.com, which we collectively felt played a major role in creating the successful environment that brought many start-ups onto the attention of the USA Angel VC’s.

Therefore the proposal was to go away and create an equivalent site which enables UK based start-ups to be viewed and reviewed in one place. Therefore I am excited to announce the launch of TechCrunch UK today. In the coming months I hope to be reviewing many UK based or focused startups.

I look forward to the date, when ebdex will be covered by TechCrunch. As a start-up, we need all the help we can get.

Tags: Start Up, TechCrunch,

ebdex Consulting is now able to provide independent consultancy services, helping organisations select the most appropriate e-invoicing, EIPP or document exchange solutions. Typically, a consultancy project starts with identifying the key drivers and challenges faced by client organisation, how they interact with their trading partners in addition to understanding the current processes and practises. Depending on the requirements and budget, the project can be extended to include analysis of the competitive environment with respect to technology adaptation.

ebdex is able to provide unbiased advise on type of solutions available in the market place, and recommend solutions for further consideration. ebdex is able to prepare pre-qualification and tender documents, conduct tender evaluations and carry out implementation supervision.

ebdex Consultancy is led by Manoj Ranaweera, who has over 10 years consultancy experience in advising clients both in UK and overseas.

Disclaimer: ebdex Document Exchange may or may not be one of the recommended solutions.

Tags: ebdex Document Exchange, e-invoicing, EIPP, ebdex Consulting

We had a strategic review meeting today, at which the decision was taken to allow companies to trial the on-line version of ebdex Document Exchange. Currently limited functionality is enabled, but we came to the conclusion that customer feed back is essential for us to move forward, rather than hold back until all functionality is available. We hope you would take this opportunity to try it out.

You are under no obligation to purchase or sign a contract except for agreeing to our simple terms and conditions of usage (yet to be published with private policy) and to allow us to add your name to "list of trial customers", which may be published on our corporate website.

We will enable additional functionality over the coming weeks and months to provide you with an increasingly beneficial customer experience. 

Tags: ebdex Document Exchange, e-invoicing, EIPP

In my opinion, the ideal customer is a company that has following four key characteristics:

1. Suffers from one or more pains (challenges!) that ebdex Document Exchange relieves (no need to convince).

2. Has a shorter buying cycle (quick result).

3. Has high transaction volume with low number of trading partners (high revenue potential).

4. Uses an accounting or ERP system for which ebdex has already developed an interface driver (rapid implementation).

Now what about my previous argument with serving the smallest of the small company? We have a solution for them, which is quick to implement – a start up and scalable solution that grows with the customer’s own growth. Its ready now! Look for upcoming promotion!

Tags: ebdex Document Exchange

Have you read Ariba’s recent white paper titled "Increase productivity, not paper: The power of EIPP to enhance Accounts Payable Savings and Costs"? If not, it is well worth a read. It proves the points we are making, which are well known by CFOs for 3 decades, yet little progress has been achieved.

There was a clue in my last article about the the key difference, and in the white paper. Have you guessed it? Let me explain.

Ariba, OB10 and many others speak about supplier networks and accounts payables more and very little about the suppliers and accounts receivable functions. The reason is that both of these players are set up to serve large corporates which have the largest budgets. There is nothing wrong with that as Ariba’s revenues speak success (OB10, I will leave that for another day!). But these companies are missing a vital point, i.e. you cannot deliver maximum benefit without giving your smaller supplier the same benefit, or at least trying it. In fact, the first error is made, when you start treating companies either as suppliers or buyers. As we all know, each company buys goods and services and sell refined or newly produced goods and services to both small and large companies, alike. In ebdex’s view, you are all our most treasured customers, whether you are small or large, whether you are a supplier or buyer.

Ariba is a large company, therefore, in my opinion, it is unable to cater for both ends of the markets. Revenue per customer ratio will not allow larger players to serve the smaller companies. Sad, but true! If so, why is both Oracle and SAP trying to serve the smaller guys? Perhaps there is now recognition within the industry that you can make revenues out of smaller customers (Dennis, worth picking up from here!)

Ask any academics or anyone with a MBA (I have one from Manchester Business School, which I am proud of), and they will most likely disagree with me saying it is foolish to target both ends of the market. I believe it is possible and can be done, but to achieve any degree of success, you must set-up the structure of the organisation with both ends of the market in mind, at the outset. But we all know, that largest customer demand the most of your time (e.g. Marrakech with Tesco – great PR, but many headaches!). So how do you manage this delicate balance of providing a superior customer service whilst being a volume player. The trick is to establish partnerships. We call them Trusted Partners (more to come!).

John, you questioned our ability to use direct and reseller networks effectively (will cover your points in a separate blog) as we are a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) player. This is the only way (in my opinion) that we can cover the complete market, from one man company which uses word or Excel to produce an invoice to a large company which spends £ millions servicing SAP and Oracle implementations.

Jason, I look forward to your coverage of EIPP from Ariba’s perspective. Fancy, a partnership! How about we provide commercial innovation whilst you provide the $$$ and £££?

By the way, just to stress one important point before I close. We are in the document exchange market. EIPP happened to be the first application of our transaction hub, the ebdex Document Exchange.

Whilst I am at it, let’s drive couple of more points home: ebdex is about commercial innovation, its about understanding the market better than anyone else, and its about giving a superior customer satisfaction (and getting customer loyalty). Mr. VC and Mr. Angel (if you are listening), we need bit of your £££ and $$$ to achieve these three vital points! My door is always open!

Tags: Ariba, ebdex, EIPP, SAP, Oracle, SaaS, Manchester Business School, MBA