GCommerce recently announced its Virtual Inventory Cloud (VIC), a service designed to improve communication of special orders in the aftermarket supply chain. The VIC automates parts availability inquiries from wholesalers/retailers to suppliers, a time-consuming process normally handled over the phone. The system works by providing buyer visibility into available inventories. GCommerce president and CEO Steve Smith, and executive vice president of sales Rick Main, talked to Aftermarket Business World about the new solution.
Why did GCommerce develop this solution?
Rick Main: One thing we've found with our customers is that special orders or non-stocking orders are a big part of the manual labor that happens between wholesalers and manufacturers. It was special a special order solution in the earlier part of the decade that led us to our EDI solution. Now that the Internet has matured and there are a better opportunities to host this type of application in the public cloud, the timing is perfect to revisit our roots in special orders.
This is something we're working on with our channel partners, the Activants and WHIs of the world. We're creating an integrated look up, so when I'm in the order entry screen, we're working with them to create a way to use the AAIA Internet Parts Ordering (IPO) standard to build a way to look at VIC, just like you'd look at other stores or your own warehouse. The manufacturer shows that part number in the quantity I want, and I go ahead and order it. Now when the ship notice comes in, you have a way to track it because the system generated the order, as opposed to an ad hoc process over the phone.
Steve Smith: In the traditional way people handle special orders, there's no return document, so the warehouse distributor can't do anything but deal with paper. We want to automate everything.
The industry is dealing with all of these orders, and traditional parts distributors are getting inquires for tools and SEMA products and paint and body parts. Do you say no and have those customers go to your competition? Wholesalers are smart; they are not going to say just go away. They want to be as good or better at capturing that demand than the competition.
Where are you at in terms of the deployment of VIC?
Rick: We're currently in the early adopter phase. We've reached out to the market and a lot of our customers in the network, and said we really want to make sure we do this right. We've built the foundation, and now we're inviting the homebuyers in to finish the house. We expect to be in preproduction in late September, and full production going into AAPEX.
Explain how cloud computing helps this system work.
Steve: Cloud computing is nothing more than providing applications through large data centers. That's what it really is. At end of the day, its' moving people away from having all this desktop and on-premise infrastructure and then buying, leasing or accessing it on demand. It's logical because so much technology has been purchased in corporate America that sits unutilized. Now you have the ability to put these things in large data centers. We categorically would not be able to build this out for the industry without that infrastructure.
Microsoft has the most widely distributed database infrastructure in the world in SQL Server. They've made that infrastructure available in the cloud through SQL Azure. In the Azure model, we only have to worry about our core business, not all of the support issues that go along with these applications. We're writing applications directly into those data centers through what they call the application fabric. Not many people are doing it, because it's new. Microsoft happens to have a dedicated automotive practice, so it was of high interest to them that they make VIC successful.
GCommerce recently announced its Virtual Inventory Cloud (VIC), a service designed to improve communication of special orders in the aftermarket supply chain. The VIC automates parts availability inquiries from wholesalers/retailers to suppliers, a time-consuming process normally handled over the phone. The system works by providing buyer visibility into available inventories. GCommerce president and CEO Steve Smith, and executive vice president of sales Rick Main, talked to Aftermarket Business World about the new solution.
Why did GCommerce develop this solution?
Rick Main: One thing we've found with our customers is that special orders or non-stocking orders are a big part of the manual labor that happens between wholesalers and manufacturers. It was special a special order solution in the earlier part of the decade that led us to our EDI solution. Now that the Internet has matured and there are a better opportunities to host this type of application in the public cloud, the timing is perfect to revisit our roots in special orders.
This is something we're working on with our channel partners, the Activants and WHIs of the world. We're creating an integrated look up, so when I'm in the order entry screen, we're working with them to create a way to use the AAIA Internet Parts Ordering (IPO) standard to build a way to look at VIC, just like you'd look at other stores or your own warehouse. The manufacturer shows that part number in the quantity I want, and I go ahead and order it. Now when the ship notice comes in, you have a way to track it because the system generated the order, as opposed to an ad hoc process over the phone.
Steve Smith: In the traditional way people handle special orders, there's no return document, so the warehouse distributor can't do anything but deal with paper. We want to automate everything.
The industry is dealing with all of these orders, and traditional parts distributors are getting inquires for tools and SEMA products and paint and body parts. Do you say no and have those customers go to your competition? Wholesalers are smart; they are not going to say just go away. They want to be as good or better at capturing that demand than the competition.
Where are you at in terms of the deployment of VIC?
Rick: We're currently in the early adopter phase. We've reached out to the market and a lot of our customers in the network, and said we really want to make sure we do this right. We've built the foundation, and now we're inviting the homebuyers in to finish the house. We expect to be in preproduction in late September, and full production going into AAPEX.
Explain how cloud computing helps this system work.
Steve: Cloud computing is nothing more than providing applications through large data centers. That's what it really is. At end of the day, its' moving people away from having all this desktop and on-premise infrastructure and then buying, leasing or accessing it on demand. It's logical because so much technology has been purchased in corporate America that sits unutilized. Now you have the ability to put these things in large data centers. We categorically would not be able to build this out for the industry without that infrastructure.
Microsoft has the most widely distributed database infrastructure in the world in SQL Server. They've made that infrastructure available in the cloud through SQL Azure. In the Azure model, we only have to worry about our core business, not all of the support issues that go along with these applications. We're writing applications directly into those data centers through what they call the application fabric. Not many people are doing it, because it's new. Microsoft happens to have a dedicated automotive practice, so it was of high interest to them that they make VIC successful.
