Marketplace Content Structures

By Scott Walls

Marketplace content structures are the data elements used represent purchasable content within an organizational marketplace.  This BLOG highlights the common content structures found in most marketplaces.  Where relevant, examples of how marketplace content structures can be governed by marketplace content structure rules is provided (marketplace content structure rules transform marketplace content structures into an intuitive, functioning marketplace).  For more information on marketplace content structure rules, read the BLOG entitled Marketplace Content Structure Rules.

The most common marketplace content structures are as follows:

Items – this content structure represents the goods and services being presented within the marketplace.  The item description is one of the few data points that all participants know and most good searches are based on this variable.  Content structure rules related to scope help consumers understand what items can be found within a marketplace, rules related to presentation help consumers understand how to search through those items and rules related to utilization help consumers understand how to purchase those items once they have been found.

Forms – this content structure allows requesters to request items that can’t be represented within a marketplace by entering free form text into a predetermined set of fields (description, qty, rate, etc.).  When an item’s basic element(s) prevent it from being represented within the marketplace (variable pricing component – lease pricing depending on term, RFQ pricing, or highly configurable product not supported by a supplier’s site/remote catalog), forms are the vehicle for creating requisitions.  Content structure rules related to scope help consumers understand what forms can be found within a marketplace, rules related to presentation help consumers understand how to access the right form and rules related to utilization help consumers understand how to purchase items using a form.

Catalogs – this content structure represents supplier-specific (sometimes even contract-specific) groupings of items.  The scope of catalogs is wholly dependent on the scope of the items within the marketplace.  There are 4 different types of catalogs, each type is examined below: 

• Marketplace Catalogs – these catalogs reside within the marketplace and contain product details and pricing information.  These catalogs cannot be updated without the permission of the procuring organization.
• Supplier Catalogs – these catalogs reside in the supplier’s marketplace and contain product details and pricing information.  However, due to their dynamic nature (either price volatility or configuration required to obtain pricing) price cannot be stored in the organization’s marketplace.  The marketplace holds the link to the supplier’s version of the organization’s catalog.  These catalogs can be updated by the supplier at any time and require some level of pricing auditing in order to ensure compliance.  These items DO NOT show up automatically in a marketplace search, they require a “proxy catalog” to be loaded and maintained within the marketplace. 
• Proxy Catalogs – these are not complete catalogs, they serve more as product “pointers”.  Proxy catalogs contain only product details, no pricing information.  Instead of pricing information, they point to a supplier catalog (they can be set up to make a call to the supplier’s site, but that has not been done at the time of this writing).  When linking to a supplier’s site, they can access the supplier’s content at various levels (store level, item type level, or at the various item…again, anything other than store level had not been set up at the time of this writing).  These catalogs require manual updating from the marketplace providers of content.  The more detailed they are (PC 8126…) the more often they come up in product searches, but the more often they require review and updating from the providers of content.
• Instructional Catalogs – these are not “real” catalogs, they too serve as “pointers”.  However, these pointers point to purchase instructions for items not available within the marketplace.  Most often these would be for items whose purchase does not require a requisition, but they must be represented within the marketplace.  For example, a sourcing specialist negotiates a contract with a rental car provider and the marketplace content structure rules dictate that the marketplace is supposed to provide product, pricing, and purchase instructions for all items negotiated as part of organizational contracts.  An instructional item would created (a fake item linking to detailed purchase instructions for the rental car, including the reservation web site) and loaded into a catalog for the rental car vendor even though a requisition is not used.  Instructional catalogs/items allow marketplaces to expand their scope rules beyond requisitionable content when necessary.

Contracts – this content structure represents a sub-grouping of items/catalogs for a given supplier.  Contracts are supplier-specific.  This can be helpful when attempting to isolate market-baskets (market-baskets allow procuring orgs to continually evaluate the value of content to itself).  Contracts are also very helpful when rolling up spend across sub-procuring-organizations.  Most marketplaces allow contracts can be negotiated at the parent organization or sub-procuring-organization level.  As with catalogs, the scope of catalogs is wholly dependent on the scope of the items within the marketplace.

Suppliers – this content structure represents the highest level in the item hierarchy.  All other content structures (items, catalogs, and contracts) are subordinate to suppliers.  Suppliers represent the actual supplier of the goods and services.  Marketplaces need to have at least one supplier for every item within the marketplace.  The level of data stored for each supplier depends on the extent of use for the marketplace vs other related applications (i.e. is the order transmission information stored within the marketplace or within an SRM/ERP application).

Procuring Organizations – this content structure represents the organization or sub-procuring-organization doing the purchasing.  This could be one, high-level organization or multiple sub-procuring-organizations depending on the business.  In a shared marketplace model, the high level organization negotiates contracts, leveraging spend across sub-organizations, and shares the items negotiated with multiple sub-orgs by deploying a shared marketplace model (multiple procuring organizations linking to the same marketplace). For example, the State of Georgia contracts with many suppliers on behalf of its 123 sub-agencies (corrections, transportation, juvenile justice, education, etc.).  It then uses its shared Team Georgia Marketplace to broadcast all items to its 123 sub-procuring-organizations.

Providers of Content – this content structure represents the marketplace participants responsible for creating the content within the marketplace; most typically the sourcing function (see also, trans-organizational sourcing functions).

Consumers of Content – this content structure represents the marketplace participants responsible for utilizing the content to order goods and services.  They are typically referred to as “requesters”.

 

* To understand how to use content structures and content structure rules within an overall marketplace strategy, see Marketplace Content Strategy