ZUGSEIL MERCATA

ZUGSEIL MERCATA delivers advanced catalog collaboration tools. This enables its users to get the max from the b-op tradesphere.

Advanced catalog collaboration

Catalogs have been the main tool for sharing knowledge on products between business partners for centuries. b-op also continues this tradition and uses digital catalogs as well. Difference to other players in the P2P or S2P markets, they are used for direct data exchange between market players in a point-to-point manner instead of notifying a central platform, which then distributes the product information.

Supplier side

On the supplier side, ZUGSEIL SCALE already comes with basic catalog definition and distribution functionality for truely digital collaboration with your customers. ZUGSEIL MERCATA extends this with these additional functionality

Catalog design (curation)

The catalog designer app is extended with capability for:

• processing of collaboration and co-creation with customers on product information quality (e.g. trhough product description improvement requests)
• enabling of solution spaces for design products (e.g. made-to-measure products)
• enabling the incorporatíon of entire catalogs of sub-suppliers. Support for manipulation rules applicable to all products of this incorporated catalog, e.g. margin adding (e.g. +5%)

Catalog distribution

The catalog distribution manager app is extended with capability for:

• enabling automatic catalog publishing on specific product changes
• enabling the catalog subscriber monitoring, which delivers revenue statistics and more business information per subscribed customer.

Client side

Catalog subscription

For using products of 3rd parties, each digital can subscribe to catalogs of these parties. The catalog subscription process is mainly facilitated by the catalog subscription manager app. It allows the subscription to 3rd party catalogs and management of the subscriptions. Catalogs and used products can imported to the local digital and then can be kept up-to-date. Changes of products, structure, prices can be monitored in this app during the process of updating.

Classification management

Classifications are the central tool for efficient procurement proceeses and procurement controlling and is required at all parties of the commerce trade sphere: Suppliers fill in category speific data on their products, which customers use for finding these products rapidly. TALOGA brings

• easy access to products through multiple category trees - specifically designable to the needs of specific user contexts.
• easy integration of partner product offerings - mapping patner's classification trees to local trees allows the automatic sorting in of new products after being accepted.
• distributed category management - allowing the whole procurement organization to collaborate on category structures, but still stay in control of a centrally curating authority
• reporting

Member apps availability

ZUGSEIL MERCATA enables the full functionality required for procurement communities or trade business models

	ACCELERATE	SCALE
App:Article management	Yes	Yes
App:Product management	Yes	Yes
App:Catalog designer	Yes	Yes	The main tool for creation, editing and managing own catalogs
App:Catalog subscription manager	Yes	Yes	The main tool for managing the usage and incorporation of products of 3rd party catalogs
App:Catalog distribution manager	Yes	Yes	The main tool for managing customer subscriptions to own catalogs

B-Op Catalog integration with legacy P2P software

Since 2016 as b-op trade sphere was defined, all business participants can have their own b-op digital and can be fully and digitally integrated at no extra cost.

But the Procure-To-Pay (P2P) process chain has been around way before 2016 and has been target for digitalization for long time. As a result of this legacy software exists for this process chain, each with a lot of customers which can not just switch to a b-op based system at once, but must ways to at least partially use the benefits instead before a migration project can start.

The ZUGSEIL P2P Hub allows the integration with 3rd party Procure-To-Pay plattforms, like SAP Ariba amongst others. This also enables the:

• export of b-op catalog revisions to a 3rd party formats (like CIF or cXML)
• import of CIF or cXML catalogs into a new digital's catalog revision (if any changes occured)

Related articles

• B-Op Yellow-Pages - The main tool for connecting and automated digital connection in trade networks
• ZUGSEIL P2P Hub - offers automation tools for catalogs and other Procure-To-Pay (P2P) objects.
• ZUGSEIL bases on B-Op - the foundation for seamless digital collaboration