SciQuest.com's B2B E-Marketplace

Background Note Contd...

Our role is to be the facilitator of that information-gathering and communications, an honest broker in the middle – we are simply the medium that allows scientists and suppliers to communicate efficiently with one another." SciQuest wanted to develop an e-commerce web site to make it easy for researchers to find and purchase the equipment they needed. They also wanted to transform the site from being just an information provider to an e-commerce B2B marketplace. Work on this project started in 1997-98. SciQuest entered into technological partnerships with leading software solution providers such as IBM, Oracle, Ariba and Commerce One. SciQuest decided to begin transforming its website by implementing a robust e-commerce solution that could integrate powerful search capabilities with easy-to-use online shopping functions.

The company needed to build the e-marketplace from scratch, including back-end transaction processes such as fulfillment and accounting.

The company evaluated many major e-commerce products in the market, finally settling for IBM's offerings in 1998. David Skowron, vice president of technology at SciQuest said, "Our final decision was based on an evaluation of product scalability, flexibility and price.

This decision was reconfirmed when we recently re-evaluated our burgeoning business needs and opted to migrate to WebSphere Commerce Suite³, which we believe is the most comprehensive, robust e-marketplace solution today."

The Technology

In September 1998, SciQuest implemented the OBI⁴ compliant Net.commerce solution. The B2B e-marketplace (See Exhibit I) was developed using WebSphere Commerce Suite and DB2 Universal Database for AIX⁵.

SciQuest.com's B2B E-Marketplace - Next Page >>>

3] It provided a B2C and B2B commerce server environment on which SciQuest could maintain its enterprise data and business critical systems. By using the WebSphere Commerce suite environment, SciQuest could develop and deploy commerce applications to the Unix S/390 Enterprise Server environment. The S/390 enterprise servers provided high availability and the performance needed to handle peak Internet driven workloads as well as being scalable according to the growing needs of customers e-business applications.

4] Open buying on the Internet (OBI) is an industry standard outlining a common set of business requirements for purchasing transactions in B2B electronic commerce.

5] DB2 Universal Database is a Web-ready relational database management system. Together with Internet technology it makes information easily accessible to companies implementing e-commerce, ERP, SCM and CRM solutions.

Case Details

Case Code : ITSY008
Themes: Internet Companies
Case Length : 09 Pages
Period : 1990-2001
Organization : SciQuest.com
Pub Date : 2002
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : USA
Industry : Information Technology (Electronic Commerce)

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