Procurement PunchOut

Procurement PunchOut is the interaction between a vendor's web storefront and a buyer's procurement application. The buyer leaves or "punches out" of their company's system and goes to the supplier's web-based catalog to locate and add items to their shopping cart, while their application transparently maintains connection with the web site and gathers pertinent information. A vendor catalog, enhanced for this process, is known as a punchout catalog. PunchOut enables communication between the software and the web site so that relevant information about the transaction is delivered to the appropriate channels.[1] Sometimes, buyers and suppliers use intermediaries to ensure authentication and version matching.

In 1999, Ariba created Commerce XML (cXML) as the first framework for this technology, consisting of a meta markup language and a protocol for data exchange between applications. www.cXML.org. 2013. RoundTrip, Commerce One, Oracle Exchange, and products based on open buying over the internet (OBI) are similar to PunchOut, and are sometimes referred to as punchout solutions.

History

While the buyer side of Procurement PunchOut has been fairly established for the past decade (in terms of eProcurement software), the supplier side has taken a longer time to develop, thus negating the potential cost savings available for buyers until recent years.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Chieu, Trieu C.; Shiwa S. Fu, Florian Pinel, Jih Shyr Yih. "Unified solution for procurement integration and B2B stores.". Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Electronic commerce. September 30-October 3, 2003: 61–67.
  2. ↑ Brisbin, Nikolas. History of PunchOut. Supplier Solutions Press Release, 2010.