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3.2.4 Sites for large customersVery large customers have unique purchasing needs. Their requirements range from having specially designed pricing and product entitlement, to having unique marketing messages and unique modifications to the site look-and-feel and presentation, and even variations in business logic. For example, large customers may require different checkout flow, supplying information unique to their company. Registration processes may differ. For example, some companies want to approve every employee who registers on the site, while others prefer a self-service process where each employee must know a company code or password to register. Different enterprises may have different order notification needs as well. Some may want a notification of each order to be sent to a designated contact; others require notification be sent to the employee who placed the order. Access control may have to be customized to the needs of a large enterprise customer. Some enterprises allow all employees to place orders, while designated administrators may view all orders in their department. In other cases, the enterprise customer may allow employees to browse the catalog, but only procurement officers are authorized to place orders. Many variations of access control are possible, but in each case they are customized to the needs of the enterprise buyer. Another frequent requirement of large customers is integration with their procurement systems, so that purchase orders are automatically punched into the commerce environment. Registered authorized employees can track the status of such B2B orders. These are a few of the customizations that an enterprise customer may demand; however, these examples illustrate the overall site customization requirement. Such enterprise sites must coexist on the same infrastructure, sharing as much data and business logic as possible, so that the management of the overall operation does not become prohibitively expensive to the selling organization. |
 ibm.com/redbooks |