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Dear readers,

most certainly it has come to your attention that POET is planning to focus on e-commerce solutions in alignment with the already successfull e-procurement solutions. To underpin this strategy we created a separate business segment called „e-commerce“ that will be headed by Daniel Schmälzle. With our two offerings – the eCOMMERCE Suite for the sales and the ePROCURE Suite for the purchase of catalog based product lines - we can now support the entire e-supply chain.
A good example of e-commerce being a well-trodden path for POET is our long-running success story with Cornelsen. The POET eCOMMERCE Suite is complemented by solutions from our partner KNO-Logistik, IBM and asknet covering almost all requirements for efficient and successful e-commerce.
In 2010 the terrain of e-procurement will be tapped by service sourcing. With eBusInstand we have reached a milestone in the standardized purchase of maintenance services, the effects of which will keep us busy in the next few years.

Yours sincerely, Jakob Karszt 

Chairman of the Board
POET AG

IBM and POET Team Up

Cornelsen Success story

Cornelsen has been using POET's e-commerce software and services for several years. Cornelsen's primary objective has always been to provide the ideal eductional products for every learning scenario. It is of uttermost importance that teachers, students, parents and anybody eager for knowledge find the right thing – be it printed or digitalized.
But was is the right thing? Every federal state in Germany employs different learning aids for different schools and grades. Mapping this structure, therefore, is an essential base for easily finding the necessary educational products per federal state, school type and class. Every year new products need to be repeatedly refined and aligned to data from the ERP system, before finally being supplied in a structured way to the various sales channels.

For years POET has been the partner for a quick and easy supply of sophisticated product information, refined with sales generating information, pictures and additional multimedia data supplied by the Product Manager. By providing the standard interfaces CSV and XML plus the interface ONIX that is very popular in the bookselling trade POET ensures the easy supply of all sales channels, from the traditional printed catalog up to a modern web shop. Product ranges that are individually tailored and up-to-date get to the differnet sales channels at the push of a button. The actuality of the product ranges is highly valued by Cornelsen's customers.

X-Solutions and X-Procure are being joined in POET's ePROCURE Suite

Features of Version 5.2 – Centralized Purchasing Using the Catalog and the Web

Go Live for the Interactive Shopping Cart

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POET's Business Services Ease the Electronic Shopping Process

E-commerce at the Push of a Button – Welcome to the eCOMMERCE Suite

POET AG has been serving the seller's e-business for many years. With the official launch of the business unit e-commerce we now offer components that are especially geared towards successful and automated e-business – consistent from the supplier up to the client. The eCOMMERCE Suite encompasses software and services. The software component includes the Catalog Manager (CM) for integrating the supplier catalogs, the Product Manager (PM) for refining the product data and WebSphere Commerce, the unchallenged leader among the shop solutions, for presenting the products and handling the orders. Our corresponding consulting and professional services top off the comprehensive package that will create success stories for our customers. Please, contact us for further details and questions concerning the various components and services. 

Talking To – Daniel Schmälzle – Head of E-commerce

POET: What does it feel like to be a POET?
Schmälzle: Slipping into the company was very easy and it feels very good to be a part of POET. I met a lot of committed employees. The existing know-how with catalogs, PIMs and online shops is very distinctive. Therefore, I am very happy to expand the activities towards e-commerce together with my new colleagues. I think it will be easy to animate the aspirations for our customers with our moto: the POETs of eSuccess.

POET: What can potential customers expect from the eCOMMERCE Suite?
Schmälzle: The bottom line is that our solutions need to be top quality and very reliable. This has been my credo during my professional career so far and I am sure that I will be able to carry it on at POET as well. Concerning our solutions we have a high performance PIM on offer that is distinguished by a high degree of automation and consistency. Speaking of consistency: as off immediately the powerful shop solution IBM WebSphere Commerce is the youngest member in our portfolio. This module fills the last missing link in our total e-supply chain. However, we do not want to focus on software only. We want to provide our customers, who want to engage in e-commerce, with an exhaustive offer to start up their online business. Simply speaking: e-commerce to go. For this purpose we have established partnerships with powerful companies, such as KNO-Logistics for the order fulfillment or asknet AG for providing payment solutions.

POET: After only a very short time you were able to acquire renowned partners for the eCOMMERCE Suite. Does that indicate a strongly growing market?
Schmälzle: For me this is just an indirect relation. E-commerce undoubtedly is a strongly growing market. We can already sense that during our sales activities. There are still many companies, that have not set up an online business. Apart from our standard range of solutions we also want to provide these companies with services for downstream processes to make their entry into the online business even more successful. In my opinion the obtained partnerships result from a common evaluation of a tremendous market demand. Most of all the partners fit our solutions and our business conduct. This is an important base for jointly serving our customers in the best possible way.

POET: How important is the consistency within the PIM process?
Schmälzle: Our understanding is that consistency is the major factor of success for the PIM and hence for e-commerce. Our experiences show that despite good isolated solutions work steps are being repeated or information is not readily available throughout the process. A centralized management supporting the entire PIM process from the supplier to the customer can create a lot of crucial advantages. Together with our ability to automate these processes on a high level we can provide high productivity combined with high quality product information for our customers.

POET: How can companies that already run PIM or shop solutions benefit from this package?
Schmälzle: The advantage of our solutions is their ability to integrate. Our PIM solution can be integrated into an existing PIM, thus sparing a migration and taking direct advantage of our solution that increases productivity and reduces costs by providing consistency and automation. The situation with WebSphere Commerce is similar. We support any existing PIM constellation and thus make sure that our customers can use the features, flexibility and the high stability of WebSphere Commerce.

POET: What's the plan for the first half-year of 2010?
Schmälzle: During the first half-year we will definitely be emphasizing on sales and communication activities. POET's reputation in the area of e-procurement needs to be setup for the area of e-commerce. We plan to increase the awareness of our new business unit „e-commerce“ by intensifying our attendance of conferences and trade fairs. In the periphery of our products we will set up an IBM WebSphere Commerce environment for our SaaS clients and complete the certification process. Concerning the Product Information Management we will further enhance the consistency and automation.

POET: Mr. Schmälzle, thank you very much for talking to us. We wish you continuing success at POET.
Schmälzle: You are welcome. I look forward to meeting and talking to some of the readers during one of our upcoming events.

BME eLösungstage from 18th bis 19th March in Bonn

e_procure & supply 2010 from 28th to 29th April in Nürnberg

Comming up:

Find more details to current events here.