DuPont Launches B2B Portal Strategy

DuPont Performance Coatings (DPC) is launching custom B2B portals for its auto body shop customers and distributors.
Using the Bowstreet Business Web Factory and Portal Automator Option, DuPont automates the offering of personalized content, data and services to North America’s 60,000 auto body shops and 4,000 distributors. The new portal is helping DPC better serve customers while lowering costs and increasing efficiencies.
The portals, at www.performancecoatings.dupont.com, were built to provide auto body shops with instant access to:

Marketing tools and promotions;
Online training registration and schedules;
Product information, including Material Safety Data Sheets that shops must carry by law;
Technical manuals and regulatory compliance charts;
Business development tools, including industry performance benchmarking;
Classified ads and employment services, and;
Industry and customizable personal interest information, such as news, weather and stock updates.

The portals also provide paint distributors with online ordering and marketing materials to help them solidify relationships with their customers.
“DuPont Performance Coatings wants to help our customers build their businesses, not just sell them product,” said Catherine Marchand, DPC e-business manager. “Bowstreet’s Business Web Factory and Portal Automator was the solution we found that could scale to our needs and realize our vision for mass-customization without becoming a programming nightmare. With Bowstreet, we can treat each shop individually, providing them with customized information, data and services based precisely on who they are.”
The portal will also provide DPC with significant time and cost savings. Online paint ordering, an option just becoming available, will relieve DPC customer service agents from keying phone, fax and e-mail orders into an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Online marketing materials will reduce the cost of printing, managing, distributing and disposing of paper. Online training registration will save distributors from clerical work. Online Materials Safety Data Sheets will provide customers with instantaneous access to up-to-the-minute information, while saving DPC from having to fax them to shops. Intangible but even more critical benefits include stronger customer relationships and increased loyalty.