webMethods, Inc. has announced that it has been selected as the integration backbone for Connect2U – the B2B marketplace for independent retailers. Connect2U, a joint venture by WHSmith and e-business consultancy, Axon, will provide independent retailers in the UK with a platform to transact business electronically with wholesalers and distributors.
Connect2U is initially focusing on the UK newsprint market, which consists of 50,000 independent news agents. This sector offers the ideal dynamics for an Internet marketplace as all news agents are required to communicate with their distributors on a daily basis for orders, returns and invoice queries. As the largest regional newsprint operator with approximately 40 percent market share, WHSmith’s News Division is the first company to integrate to the marketplace enabling its 26,000 news agents to automate transactions with its 50 regional warehouses every day.
Using webMethods B2B(TM), WHSmith was able to integrate its SAP system directly with the Connect2U trading platform in three weeks, automating communications between news agents. Connect2U now plans to use webMethods to integrate the remaining newsprint suppliers and wholesalers in the UK with the exchange. The company’s long-term plan is to open the exchange to independent retailers outside of the newsprint arena.
We had the interesting challenge of creating a marketplace without knowing which companies Connect2U will ultimately be targeting and in turn what technology will need to be integrated, explains Don Kirkwood, COO of Axon and non-executive director of Connect2U. For this reason we needed to create a generic platform with a wide breadth of tools and standards to prepare for all future integration eventualities.
webMethods was the only real choice to provide the integration behind Connect2U. As the leader in B2Bi, webMethods gives us integration credibility that is crucial to the success of the marketplace, said Kirkwood.
B2B marketplaces are now open for business across all industries, however integration can be the hurdle to broad adoption, commented Steve Donald, UK sales director, for webMethods. webMethods works with many B2B exchanges, like Connect2U, to provide a quick integration on-ramp for suppliers and buyers to sign up and reap the advantages of trading electronically.
The Connect2U marketplace went live in August this year and aims to integrate eight thousand retailers by the end of 2001.
