If a customer ranks low on both measures, the company’s browser-based site is the tool of choice. If it ranks low in technical sophistication but high in network potential, e-markets are the preferred route. A customer with high technical sophistication but low network potential is considered for a one-to-one ERP-to-ERP connection. And a customer that ranks high on both measures probably is best accessed through a connectivity hub.

So when Air Products received a request from its largest electronics customer to exchange Certificates of Analysis documents in XML, Beltz knew that a one-to-one connection was in order. It also had to happen quickly, because if Air Products couldn’t provide the documents electronically by the customer’s deadline, the customer planned to stop accepting the company’s shipments.

Beltz needed a solution and he needed it fast – he had less than two months to meet the customer’s deadline. He also needed it to meet certain parameters, such as the ability to convert data from one format to another, to handle business process workflow, to integrate with the company’s backend systems and to conform to both companies’ Microsoft-specific philosophy.

Air Products’ manufacturing system already generated the CofA data the company needed, but the team needed to find a way to extract the data from that legacy system, map it and begin transmitting the information in a span of just two months. Air Products settled on a collection of Microsoft tools, including BizTalk to move data between the legacy system and the customer, BizTalk Mapper to translate between the systems at Air Products and its customer, and BizTalk Orchestration, which provides a template for mapping business processes.

The result, Beltz said, is a system that has exchanged 15,000 documents with the customer to date and is so troublefree “we don’t need to watch the environment any longer. We initially had a person going in several times a day to look for problems, such as messages that didn’t go. But the system works so well, we never have to think about it which, of course, is exactly what you want.”

The project has been so successful that Beltz now believes Air Products can use its capabilities to increase its online sales from a level of $100 million today to $1 billion in 2002. The company plans to do that, in part, by proactively marketing its e-business capabilities to its trading partners rather than waiting for them to request. Future expansions will include finding a way to integrate the company’s EDI data and transactions entered on its APDirect web site through BizTalk so that it flows directly into Air Products’ ERP system.

Based on the project experience, Beltz offered a few suggestions for companies that want to increase the chances of success for their e-business projects:

• Choose tools based on how they fit with your strategy and current technology environment.
• Remember that e-business projects are not just a technology exercise but require deep business process understanding. “It’s not as easy as it sounds,” he said. “It requires business input at a detailed level to get things moving.”
• Equip yourself with the tools needed to transform data and handle business process workflow issues.
• Expect startup problems and find a partner to help you solve them.
• Think big but start small. “You’ll need a win to show the businesses how the technology will help them. Once you’ve proven that the benefits are there, getting buy-in for future projects will be easier.”