In the good old, pre-B2B days (six months ago), most businesses had a fairly tried-and-true method for deciding who to invite into their supply chains. That's not so easy online, and for a number of reasons.
A couple of weeks ago, as I pulled my car into the driveway, I noticed that the large pine tree in the front yard was turning brown and loosing all of its needles. This is not supposed to happen to pine trees, even in the fall. So I decided a call to the tree doctor was in order. But where do you find a tree doctor you can trust, not some hack who's going to send a 60-foot sugar pine crashing into the living room?
First I looked in a local business services directory. Then I phoned the Better Business Bureau to check on the tree guys listed there.
Everything worked out. (The tree didn't feel a thing.) But the whole episode got me thinking: Wouldn't it be great if enterprises looking for business-to-business e-commerce partners had something like the BBB they could turn to? I'm talking about a trusted third party or even just a framework for quickly getting a handle on whether a particular B2B customer, supplier or technology partner is even worth doing business with online.
In the good old, pre-B2B days (six months ago), most businesses had a fairly tried-and-true method for deciding who to invite into their supply chains. They considered the reputations that potential partners or suppliers had established over a number of years. Maybe they looked into potential partners' financial health. And they relied on personal relationships.
That's not so easy online, and for a number of reasons. The Internet vastly increases the number of potential suppliers or partners businesses may potentially do business with. That can be a good thing since it can lead to lower prices on goods and services. But how do you know that the supplier whose bid is 20 percent below the next lowest bidder can actually de-liver? How do you know they're even who they say they are? And how do you know they have any experience doing business over the Internet? Can they process an XML document? Who knows?
Not only is B2B more anonymous, it's faster. Potential new B2B partners pop up every day. You may not have the time or the contacts to check them all out on your own. Make the wrong choice, and you may live to regret it when the new B2B partner you hooked up with today is gone or has changed strategic directions tomorrow.
Ventro's cautionary tale
Just the other day, for example, B2B e-marketplace services provider Ventro, announced it was making a change in strategic direction and that it would be shutting down two e-marketplaces it had launched: Chemdex in the life sciences industry and Promedix in the medical products market. What if you were in one of those industries and you'd decided to build your B2B initiatives around one of those e-marketplaces? You'd be forced to make some strategic changes of your own right about now.
If there had been a B2B BBB in place, Ventro's description might read something like, "Prone to strategy du jour. Survival in doubt. Partner with caution."
I'm not sure that the BBB-for-B2B idea is really feasible. For one thing, you'd have to be able to find n objective source of information and analysis in each vertical industry. That doesn't really exist today. Unless a model develops somewhere soon, I guess businesses will just have to continue to rely on their savvy and word of mouth.
By the way, let me know if you ever need a good tree doctor. I know just the guy.
What do you think? Does the idea of a better business bureau for B2B make sense?
