By industry

The solution pages in the other four categories describe one goal each. These five describe one kind of company each, and put the goals in the order that works for it. A manufacturer starts with the variant model and spare parts; a distributor starts with the supplier data pipeline; a technical wholesaler starts with mobile reorder and branch stock. The building blocks are the same. The sequence is what differs, and the sequence is what most projects get wrong.

Read the page that matches you, then follow its links into the goal pages and guides. If you are two things at once (a manufacturer who also distributes complementary products is common), read both and take the phasing from the one that describes most of your revenue. If you are small and have no IT department, read the Mittelstand page first regardless of your industry; it changes the order of everything else.

• Manufacturers: variant configuration, contract prices, punchout, spare parts, the dealer network.
• Distributors: long tail, self-service, the Innendienst, and a catalog of 200,000 articles from 400 suppliers.
• Technical wholesale: the building site, the branch network, the trade customer on a mobile at 06:30, Datanorm, and buying-group conditions.
• Brands: multi-brand, multi-country, D2C next to the trade channel, without starting a channel war.
• The Mittelstand without an IT team: everything above, done by three people who also have day jobs.