Case Study: StaplesLink.com and IBM's WebSphere

Lisa Hamblet is in the middle of a very big job overseeing the upgrade of StaplesLink.com's e-commerce platform. As vice president of B2B e-commerce for Staples, Hamblet manages the online superstore for the multi-billion dollar office supply retailer Staples. StaplesLink.com currently serves nearly 10,000 medium and large-sized organizations and more than 2.6 million customers, offering real time inventory display on approximately 80,000 items, from notebooks to file folders to desk accessories.

The company's first e-commerce initiatives were in the late '90s, using an infrastructure designed in-house, an effort Hamblet describes as a pilot to help understand how to meet customers' needs online. Staples then hired IBM to design and implement its current e-commerce operation, which was launched in October 1999 using IBM's Net.Commerce PRO platform. In March of this year, StaplesLink.com announced that it would be one of the first (along with Panasonic) to upgrade to IBM's newest version of its e-commerce software, WebSphere. Hamblet expects the upgrade to take approximately six months. "I would love it be 'flick the switch' and you're there, but in moving to a new environment you have to make sure you're taking it step by step, making sure testing has been adequately accomplished," says Hamblet. "So I think I have a wish that's unattainable."

The newest WebSphere software, according to IBM, allows e-commerce sites to display inventory in more visual ways, in real time, and eliminates instances of users clicking on an item only to learn it's out of stock. It also improves order management, allowing customers to more easily track shipping dates and automatically process backorders. And it facilitates document sharing, automating the quote and proposal process.

Hamblet says that one of the new features enabled by the upgrade will be a site analyzer tool. Since Stapleslink.com users log in with a secure password, the site can already track customer use, but Hamblet says the analyzer tool will further enable Staples to study how customers use the site, allowing enhancements to features such as the search tool. Many other functions the upgrade enables are already incorporated into the site, but Hamblet hopes for still greater performance, specifically in the areas of scalability, speed of operation and real time pricing and inventory. "We have a robust site today, and we are looking for the latest technology to even increase the speed and make it better in the future," she says.

As one of the Internet's most sophisticated e-commerce operations, the site has heavy demands upon it. Staples' Contract Division, which services Staples' medium and large-size contract clients, handles about a billion dollars of business a year, and Hamblet says 64 percent of that goes through the Web site. She expects that figure to rise to 70 percent by the end of the year. The remaining percentage of its corporate customers continue to use traditional ordering methods, but Hamblet says there has been a "pretty aggressive" migration to the company's e-commerce outlet since its launch in 1999. And, she points out, "This past year alone, 86 percent of the new customers we acquired use StaplesLink for doing business with us."

To handle the amount and complexity of its e-commerce transactions, StaplesLink used IBM's software to build a completely customized e-commerce infrastructure. Each of the site's corporate customers log in to an online ordering system that is customized based on that company's specific contract, and contract-specific prices are built into an individualized order form. A shopping list function facilitates repeat ordering, enabling buyers to progress quickly. And the site's Quick Order function allows customers to shop using product SKU numbers instead of browsing the catalog.

Because corporate purchasing agents must often get approval from senior management, StaplesLink.com has a tool that facilitates purchase authorization. The site automatically sends e-mail to the appropriate person alerting them that there is an order to approve. StaplesLink has further refined this process so that multiple users at different organizational levels can each have different spending limits, and approval notification can be routed to various people throughout their organization. Through it all, buyers can track the status of their orders - pending, approved or changed. And, says Hamblet, "Staples does not receive the order until it has been completely approved." As a company continues to use the site, StaplesLink.com will generate its updated spending reports.

The site also makes use of rich media. "We have focused on providing richer content to the site. We went from probably 20,000 SKUs with rich content to about 80,000 SKUs with rich content," Hamblet says. "We've had the opportunity to make sure we've got images, and we've got long descriptions for the products so our customers are able to make better, more informed decisions."

StaplesLink.com increases its client base by interfacing with other B2B e-procurement applications, such as Ariba or Commerce One. Some large companies prefer these applications because they combine many vendors on one platform, providing companies with a comprehensive overview of e-procurement across the organization. Hamblet says that Staples can put a customer who uses StaplesLink onto one of these e-procurement applications within 30 days. "And that really helps our customer base, the larger customers, gain a return on investment from their e-procurement applications," she says. Hamblet notes, though, that the various e-procurement applications each have different approaches to how user fields are mapped. "If they standardized that, that would make all suppliers' life a little easier."

One of the benefits of StaplesLink.com's e-commerce approach is that it enabled the company to weather the Internet downturn with minimal effect. "I think smaller businesses probably held back, but since we're servicing a medium to large-sized customer base, they have really seen the benefits of consolidating their business, ordering electronically, saving from a PO perspective, leveraging the functionality on StaplesLink," says Hamblet. "The benefits of our site have really been essential to our customers, and the dotcom bomb did not impact the customer looking at our system and saying, 'this makes sense for our business.'"