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B2B Commerce PunchOut for a Seamless, Simplified Purchase Process

ManimozhiR
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎02-21-2023 5:27 AM

Introduction


PunchOut is the concept of electronic communication between the company's internal procurement systems and the supplier's B2B Portal. Through punchout, a buyer can access suppliers' catalogs and purchase products seamlessly, within his internal infrastructure. Customers are able to make purchasing decisions more easily if B2B retailers facilitate punchout.


With PunchOut, B2B buyers will be able to access SAP Commerce Cloud-powered storefronts and product detail pages from within their procurement environment like Ariba.


This article describes the PunchOut features of B2B Commerce and the business value they provide to B2B organizations. Additionally, the article discusses architecture and integration. The guidance section will help technical and business teams strategize their implementation.



Business Value 


B2B PunchOut for SAP Commerce Cloud enables suppliers to expose their product and service offerings to enterprise buyers' preferred procurement systems. Suppliers can now reach out to a vast network of large enterprise buyers, which increases market visibility and revenue.


SAP Commerce Cloud's B2B PunchOut Module allows buyers to shop a supplier's online catalog and save items selected as requisitions in their procurement systems. Supplier can sell more by extending product offerings on procurement networks and delivering a better ecosystem experience​ with real time information.

Here are some business values of the PunchOut

  • Boost Customer Experience

  • Simplified buying process

  • Increases order accuracy and conversion

  • Increases Buying frequency

  • Helps to increase CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)

  • Reduces the operation cost


B2B Punchout Features


The PunchOut module offers the following main features:

  • Access to supplier catalog (B2B portal) from within procurement system

  • PunchOut from your procurement system to SAP B2B Commerce Portal (within the procurement system)

  • View products, create cart in B2B Portal and send purchase requisition to procurement system.

  • Place an order to SAP Commerce directly from your procurement system after approval.


The PunchOut feature requires B2B Accelerator, as the Accelerator Add-On makes SAP Commerce Cloud for B2B PunchOut-ready.


Ariba Procure-to-Pay was used as a testing environment for B2B Accelerator's PunchOut functionality, but it should work with any procurement solution that supports the cXML protocol.


The communication between B2B commerce Cloud and Ariba is based on cXML commerce extensible Markup Language (cXML) and it is supported by other procurement solutions too.


Please refer B2B PunchOut Features for more information.

B2B Punchout Types 


1.The b2bpunchoutaddon supports SAP Ariba Level 1+ functionality, which includes procurement purchasing functionality, support for Edit and Inspect, and the ability to receive the purchase order.

2.The b2bpunchoutaddon also supports SAP Ariba Level 2 PunchOut functionality, which enables buying organizations to search for and find PunchOut items within their procurement application, instead of having to search each suppliers’ site directly. Level 2 makes suppliers’ products more accessible to buying organizations, increases the visibility of suppliers’ products, and increases visits to suppliers’ PunchOut sites (available from Commerce Cloud release 2211).

Please refer B2B Punchout Workflow for detailed steps involved more information.

B2B Punchout Level 1  



  1. In their PunchOut-aware procurement system, the buyer starts a purchase order.

  2. The buyer chooses to view the catalog of a supplier that provides a PunchOut site.

  3. The desired shopping site appears in a web browser and logs the user in automatically, as shown in the following workflow. In effect, the buyer has “punched out” of their procurement system and “punched into” the supplier site.

  4. The buyer searches for and selects items to purchase.

  5. When the buyer has finished adding items for purchase to the cart, the buyer clicks the checkout button that shows the shopping cart. Instead of displaying standard B2B Accelerator buttons to start the checkout process, the site displays Cancel Requisition and Return to Requisition

  6. The buyer clicks Return to Requisition. The buyer’s procurement system reappears containing the items the user selected. If the buyer clicks Cancel Requisition from the checkout page, the shopping session is abandoned. The user is returned to the procurement system with no items selected for purchase.

  7. From the procurement system, buyer submits the purchase for approval through the normal company channels. When the procurement system approves the purchase requisition, it submits the actual purchase order in cXML format to the supplier for processing.

  8. The Order can be verified in SAP Commerce from the backoffice




B2B Punchout Level 2 (From commerce cloud release 2211)



  1. The buyer opens their company's PunchOut-aware procurement system and starts a purchase requisition.

  2. The buyer searches for products. The procurement system displays all matching content.

  3. The buyer chooses one of the supplier’s products and clicks Buy from Supplier.

  4. The supplier’s PunchOut site displays more product details and current pricing for the specific item and logs the buyer in automatically. In effect, the buyer has "punched out" of their procurement system and "punched into" the supplier site.

  5. When the buyer has finished adding items for purchase to the cart, the buyer clicks the checkout button that shows the shopping cart. Instead of displaying standard B2B Accelerator buttons to start the checkout process, the site displays Cancel Requisition and Return to Requisition.

  6. The remaining steps are the same as described in the section Typical buyer PunchOut Session for Level 1 PunchOut on this page.


B2B Punchout Architecture


The B2BPunchOut Module consists of the following extensions:

  • b2bpunchout Extension
    The b2bpunchout extension implements the cXML protocol to process cXML requests and produce response objects.

  • b2bpunchoutaddon Add-on
    The PunchOut Add-on b2bpunchoutaddon is responsible for PunchOut-related HTTP requests from the procurement system as well as PunchOut-specific changes to the B2B views and functionality.

  • b2bpunchoutbackoffice Extension
    The b2bpunchoutbackoffice extension provides Backoffice configuration capability for the PunchOut module.

  • b2bpunchoutocc Extension
    Theb2bpunchoutocc extension exposes functionality of the B2B PunchOut module in the form of the standardized OCC (Omnichannel Commerce) API .

  • b2bpunchoutocctests Extension
    The b2bpunchoutocctests extension provides tests for the b2bpunchoutocc extension


Please refer B2B PunchOut Architecture for more information

B2B Punchout Implementation Guidance 




Conclusion


Thank you for reading this blog and please share your thoughts in comments section.

Using this blog, B2B businesses can learn about punchout and plan and strategize the integration of supplier systems with B2B portals. The guidance section will assist the team in analyzing and architecting the punchout solution.

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