How a Workwear Manufacturer Runs 60% of Its Business on PunchOut With TradeCentric
A forward-looking integration team turns growing buyer demand into scalable, team-owned connections, without the risk of having one person manage and maintain integrations.
Challenge
- One developer owned every buyer integration.
- PunchOut requests were outpacing what a DIY approach could support, and buyers on platforms like Workday needed cXML, not EDI.
Solution
- TradeCentric moved every buyer connection over during a fixed-date replatform to BigCommerce.
- It then handled cXML invoicing for a major Workday customer much faster than a comparable EDI project would have taken.
Result
- About 60% of the business, including the largest customers, now runs on PunchOut.
- That lets the company drop its old ~$100K revenue threshold for onboarding customers to PunchOut and go after new verticals.
Introduction
This manufacturer has built its name on gear that performs in demanding work environments and, increasingly, on the ease with which its largest customers can buy that gear inside their own procurement systems.
For the company, eProcurement integration isn’t back-office plumbing. It’s a competitive advantage, one the company has chosen to scale on TradeCentric rather than build and maintain on its own.
Challenge
As buyer demand for integrated purchasing grew, the company faced a familiar crossroads for any technical team: build the connections in-house, or partner with a provider. Three realities shaped the decision.
- Bespoke integrations concentrate risk in one person. Integration development is a specialized, exacting discipline, and with only one person managing the integrations, the business process depended entirely on him.
- Buyer demand was accelerating, unprompted. Multiple buyers were asking for PunchOut by name, faster than a DIY approach could reliably support as buyers and their platforms changed.
- Modern buyer platforms use different protocols. Requirements like invoicing through Workday (which uses cXML, not EDI) meant the company needed flexibility that its DIY program couldn’t support.
The company’s Senior Integration Developer shared that early in his career, he might have built it all himself. However, experience taught him what that costs, not just ongoing administration, but the fragility of a process only one person understands.
A DIY integration might get one buyer live, but the moment a second buyer arrives or a platform changes, the homegrown connection becomes, in his words, a nightmare to manage, maintain, troubleshoot, and non-stop technical debt.
Solution
The company conducted a major replatform to BigCommerce. With a go-live date set in stone, TradeCentric helped bring every buyer connection over on a quick timeline.
“It’s better to have an experienced provider alongside us, so if we need anything, we have support to draw from. It’s a no-brainer for us.”
— Senior Integration Developer
When Workday had an invoicing requirement, the team was reminded of just that.
One of the company’s largest customers needed to invoice through Workday, which supports cXML rather than EDI. TradeCentric bridged the gap, and the turnaround was dramatically faster than a comparable EDI project would have been.
“The ability to invoice with cXML opens up so many options. It’s awesome to have that in my back pocket, especially when we look at what customers we want to target going forward, because you have to understand what platforms they run on.”
— Senior Integration Developer
Results and what’s ahead
Today, roughly 60% of the company’s business runs on PunchOut, including its largest customers.
At renewal there is no internal case to re-sell. As the integration lead puts it, those customers “would complain more than we would” if PunchOut ever went away.
That confidence is fueling growth. The company historically applied a revenue threshold of around $100K year-to-date before onboarding a customer to PunchOut. Because a PunchOut catalog is now seamless, the company has the ability for more growth opportunities and to target new verticals.
Demand is increasingly buyer-led. It reflects a broader shift the integration lead sees across B2B: the centralized corporate buyer is giving way to requisition-and-approval flows in platforms like Ariba and Workday, and PunchOut is what makes that self-service model work.
Internally, he has become a champion for eProcurement integration. He commissioned a customer-facing sales sheet explaining what the company supports and how it works on the buyer’s side, and built enablement for sales reps, why integration makes a customer relationship “sticky,” and the buyer-platform keywords to listen for in the field. Customer service uses the TradeCentric portal to check on orders. Integration isn’t a utility here; it’s part of how the company goes to market, and a foundation it intends to keep building on.
Learn how PunchOut Catalogs can help your organization.