The Flex programming language has yet to fully catch on in the B2B world. It should. People shopping on B2B websites increasingly expect the performance and experience they get from the B2C sites they use at home (or when the boss isn’t looking). Websites that incorporate Flex perform like a desktop-resident application. The effect is addictive to users, in the same way that the iPhone is. Exponential improvement in ease of use locks in business users who prize speed and convenience in their online purchasing. As I discuss below from a general business perspective, Flex delivers B2B performance muscle.

Flex enables common, best of industry development practices and methodologies for delivering rich internet applications. A classic problem with the HTML/Ajax applications is they don’t grow very well, due to the lack of an object-oriented, component model designed to support large application development. The projects aren’t very well organized, and it’s difficult for teams to work on them. Flex lets you take a programmatic, object-oriented approach to writing applications that are ultimately delivered via Flash. Delivery over Flash allows for browser-embedded applications with nearly the power of an Applet, without Java’s poor install base or common installation complexity.

We chose Flex because 1) it offers a more professional programming approach and 2) it lets you build a website that is much more cinematic and interactive than the typical website built in Ajax or HTML. Visit verical.com and you’ll see things transition very smoothly. There are no page refreshes. We can perform advanced operations like in-place sort, resize and rearrange table columns, dynamic filtering, auto complete, etc. All of those operations would be time consuming and non-componentized in Ajax, but they’re relatively simple using Flex.

Verical was originally written in OpenLaszlo, another rich Internet application technology that preceded and competes with Flex. Verical migrated to Flex over the past year or so because, among other reasons, Flex is better supported for newer versions of Flash. As a result, we can take advantage of the features in newer versions of Flash, which means that our website runs much, much faster.

Other benefits of Flex? It enforces the separation between the client and server. We’re not creating HTML views that the user then sees. Instead, we have a server application that communicates with the Flex application via open standards. That separation lets us easily create additional applications— e.g., our browser extension—that consume the same information. Likewise, the separation of resource bundles under Flex makes it much easier to do things like internationalize and update site assets compared to HTML. And Flex Builder, Adobe’s IDE, is much nicer to work with than a standard HTML editor.

Finally, but of no small import, as any web developer can attest, delivering an application via Flash/Flex prevents browser differences from interfering with the users’ experience of the web site. Flex eliminates the web development headaches of sites looking different in different browsers, or things working in one browser and not working in another. This translates to significantly reduced development and QA time, and also to a much more stable, consistent experience for our users.

Despite the advantages, a small percentage of businesses still resist Flex. Here are two roots to the argument against.  First, building a website in Flex means your users need to run Flash, and business adoption of Flash lags behind the general user community. Second, Flex imposes an initial performance hit to deliver its overall performance gains: Our initial download time may be 1.5x that of a typical HTML page.

It’s also true, however, that businesses lag in Flash adoption by only a few percentage points, maybe 97 or 98 percent (business) vs. 99+ percent (consumers). And the few extra seconds it takes to initially load our site? That time is easily recovered in the first few sorting steps our customers take in search of their parts. Once on the Verical site, our customers blaze through the entire purchase process, doing things immediately that take minutes of page refreshing and waiting on other sites.

Bottom line: The development and user experience benefits of Flex are absolutely a key differentiator for Verical. Our relatively small development team is able to remain agile and responsive to the needs of our customers. And, at the end of the day, the web experience that we offer our customers is unparalleled in the electronic components industry and is among the best of what e-commerce on the web has to offer in general.

If we look back on the origins of lean manufacturing, we can trace the principles to improving design, service, quality, testing and sales through various methods, including the application of statistical methods. In inventory management, statistical methods are applied to accurately size the amount of inventory needed in the supply chain based on time, variability and service levels. If applied correctly, the use of statistics in lean manufacturing will optimize the end-to-end supply chain. If applied incorrectly, with a “lean focus” (meaning reducing inventory as much as possible), it’s going to mean missed opportunities as upturns in the economy occur.

At Verical, we recognize the need for highly agile supply chain processes to compete in today’s market and the problems associated with the chronic excesses and shortages that result in large costs and risks to the supply networks. We work directly with the OEMs and contract manufacturers to reduce the risk by allowing them to source time critical components fast and easily, and with component manufacturers and distributors to allow them to monetize slow moving and end of life inventory. Our innovative online electronic components outlet provides an easy, reliable and fast way to buy and sell electronic components—which ultimately results in more agile, responsive supply chains with the associated lower costs and risks.

We can all learn a lesson from Toyota. As The Economist article states, take time to “stop, think and make improvements” in your supply chain and lean manufacturing strategy.

Buyers See Part Numbers, Prices and Quantities for Inventory In-Stock at Verical’s Factory Outlet—without Navigating to Verical.com

• Firefox extension gives buyers immediate, always-on access to Verical inventory information
• Auto-complete feature displays drop-down lists of matches as shoppers key in part number searches
• Download the Verical Toolbar at https://www.verical.com/extensions

SAN FRANCISCO — February 22, 2010 — Verical, Inc., the online factory outlet for electronic components, today announced the Verical Toolbar, a Firefox web browser extension that lets users quickly and easily search the company’s extensive catalog of electronic components through a search box located in the browser bar. With the Verical toolbar, buyers can browse Verical’s in-stock inventory and bargain prices—without navigating to Verical’s website located at https://www.verical.com. Available now, the Verical Toolbar can be downloaded at https://www.verical.com/extensions/.

“Our new plug-in toolbar gives buyers, engineers and others an instant search tool to spot check prices and availability at Verical without needing to open a new window and navigate to our site,” said Josef Ruef, co-founder and CEO at Verical. “This toolbar is just one of many features that Verical offers to improve the efficiency of its user’s search experience, by rendering data in a way that makes it extremely consumable—information rich, yet easy to understand and act on. Our mission is to provide shoppers with all the data and tools they need to make informed buying decisions as immediately as their circumstances dictate.”

Other customer-driven features recently announced for the Verical Marketplace include the Bid Button, a one-click icon that delivers eye-popping bargains on selected clearance inventory available at https://www.verical.com, and Demand Match™, the industry’s only bulk search tool that matches open requirements with available supply automatically.

After adding the Verical Toolbar to the Firefox browser, users simply type in the part number they are looking for, and the toolbar will display a drop-down list of the parts available at Verical that match the search. To expedite searches, the toolbar’s auto-complete feature guides users as part numbers are keyed-in, by progressively refining the match list with each keystroke entered. Selecting one of the parts from the list will take users to the Verical site, where they can research and purchase the part. Going forward, the company will introduce a Verical Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Chrome.

For buyers who need parts delivered “yesterday,” Verical’s new toolbar provides ready access to factory direct inventory, at discount prices. Keying in the first few digits of a part number will instantly reveal parts orderable on demand, replete with pricing and quantity available.

For more information on Verical, Inc., please visit https://www.verical.com. For additional perspectives, visit and subscribe to the Verical blog at http://blog.verical.com/, and follow Verical on Twitter at @Verical and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Verical.

Additional Resources

Verical Website: https://www.verical.com

Company Overview: https://www.verical.com/about/

Newsroom: https://www.verical.com/about/resources/newsroom.html

Blog: “The Electronic Components Source” http://blog.verical.com/

Verical on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Verical

Verical on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Verical

Industry Insights: presentations, articles, websites; https://www.verical.com/about/resources/industry.html

Counterfeit White Paper: “The Real Solution to Fake Parts: Securing Supply Chains through Data Transparency and Better Market Design”; http://bit.ly/counterfeitwhitepaper

About Verical

Verical is the creator of the Verical marketplace, an online factory outlet for electronic components that provides buyers traceable, branded goods at discount prices. Top manufacturers and franchised distributors publish slow-moving inventory to Verical to optimize prices and yields anonymously. Founded in 2007, Verical is a San Francisco-based start-up backed by Valhalla Partners. The company is experiencing rapid growth with over 27,000 parts available today in the Verical outlet at www.verical.com.

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DemandMatch is a trademark of Verical, Inc. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: Verical Marketplace Toolbar, Firefox, browser bar, electronic components, distribution, electronic component catalog, electronic components factory outlet, excess inventory, online catalog, shortage purchasing, shortages, supply chain, supply chain integrity, supply chain security, inventory, manufacturing, Bid Button, DemandMatch, Internet Explorer, Chrome

Media Contact:

Susan D’Elia, media relations for Verical

TECHMarket Communications

650.344.1260

Susan@TECHMarket.com

Do you ever wonder if the electronic components that you buy from brokers and independent distributors are legit? Where are they REALLY coming from? The U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) just issued its assessment report on counterfeit electronics, which provides some interesting, albeit alarming, statistics on the degree to which counterfeit components have become integrated into the U.S. supply chain. Thankfully, the DoC also recommends best practices for protecting against counterfeit electronics. While obvious, the foremost recommendation is buying from trusted suppliers.

To help answer those nagging questions about counterfeit components that keep buyers up at night, we created the Verical marketplace: a factory outlet for electronic components that provides buyers traceable, branded goods at discount prices. Top manufacturers and franchised distributors publish slow-moving inventory to Verical to optimize prices and yields anonymously. Today, the online Verical factory outlet has more than 27,000 parts available; check it out at www.verical.com.

Check out this excellent EE Times interview with Barclays Capital analyst Tim Luke. Luke anticipates “a tight supply of memory parts in 2010 and perhaps beyond.” This article reinforces our belief that memory will soon be joining the list of hard-to-find parts turning up on buyers’ shortage lists across the world, and at the same time, prices will begin to rise. Quickly finding trusted sources of constrained parts at bargain prices will become one of the priorities in 2010 and into 2011 for buyers and procurement managers alike.

At Verical, we recognize the need for highly agile supply chain processes to compete in today’s market and manage the challenges associated with the chronic excesses and shortages that result in large costs and risks to the supply networks. Our factory outlet provides an easy, reliable and fast way to buy and sell electronic components – which ultimately results in more agile, responsive supply chains with the associated lower costs and risks.

By: Gina Roos, Electronics Advocate

Bulk Search Tool Matches Open Orders with Available Supply for Multiple Shortages

• DemandMatch™ automates workflow to shrink sourcing time from hours or days  to minutes
• Online catalog eliminates the spreadsheets, phone calls and web searches used by buyers spending 40 percent of their time sourcing 1 percent of their parts purchases
• Industry-first sourcing feature only available on Verical

SAN FRANCISCO — February 3, 2010 — Verical, Inc., the online outlet for electronic components, today announced DemandMatch™, the industry’s only bulk search tool that matches open requirements with available supply automatically. With DemandMatch, open requirements generated by planning systems are matched with available supply at www.verical.com, segmented, and returned via email to the buyers responsible for purchasing the components. Available now, DemandMatch dramatically reduces the time it takes buyers to procure parts “on demand,” slashing sourcing time from hours or days to minutes.

“Parts shortages are weekly, hair-on-fire problems for EMS companies,” said Chris Cookson, vice president of operations for Verical. “When a production line goes down, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per day in lost revenue and market share. Worse still, if orders are perishable then each lost sale impacts the bottom line at the gross margin level. EMS companies spend anywhere from one to ten percent of their total material spend filling shortages by sourcing from the secondary market. Buyers typically spend over 40 percent of their time sourcing the 1 percent of the parts they purchase to cover shortages. DemandMatch puts out the fire, saving companies time and money while keeping production lines up and running.”

DemandMatch automates the workflow for sourcing time-critical components that can’t be obtained through the primary channel. On a weekly basis, buyers armed with spreadsheets and telephones spend countless hours calling distributors and brokers, hunting down parts needed to fill gaps between planned and actual parts requirements. Despite the huge outlay of time, these “on demand” requirements make up only one to two percent of the total parts purchased. DemandMatch compresses sourcing time to zero by processing open requirements sent automatically from buyers’ enterprise planning systems and notifying buyers of matches via email within minutes.

DemandMatch in Detail

DemandMatch delivers in-stock supply information to buyers with extremely short deadlines, allowing them to fill their time-critical needs for production shortages, new product introduction builds, and repair orders. Groups of factories can be served simultaneously. DemandMatch emails buyers only when exact matches or drop-in replacement upgrades are available for immediate purchase and delivery. Buyers need only click on hyperlinks embedded in the email to view matches.

The DemandMatch process begins when Verical receives an electronic requirements report from the planning systems of participating OEM and EMS companies. These lists may be submitted in any electronic format, including industry-standard protocols such as RosettaNet, web services, XML, cXML, xCBL or EDI.  Alternatively, buyers may upload lists directly to the Verical website by registering and then clicking on the “Buyer’s Workbench” tab.

After the requirements list is submitted to Verical, DemandMatch automatically generates match lists and segments them by buyer. The individualized match lists are subsequently emailed to each buyer. Each email includes hyperlinks that navigate users to matches in the Verical outlet. There, buyers review the matches against their open requirements, select the parts they wish to buy and check out.

Cookson, who held the position of VP, supply chain solutions at Solectron prior to joining Verical, said, “DemandMatch delivers component solutions to buyers in advance of the Monday morning shortage meeting, provided that their planning systems are calibrated to send information to Verical after running over the weekend. If our automated tool can enable buyers to get parts in the air two days earlier than through a manual sourcing process, we’ve reduced their risk considerably. Their lines stay up, penalties are avoided, and they can deliver their finished products on time.”

For more information on Verical, Inc., please visit https://www.verical.com. For additional perspectives, visit and subscribe to the Verical blog at http://www.verical.com/comm/category/blog, and follow Verical on Twitter at @Verical.

Additional Resources

Verical Website: https://www.verical.com

Company Overview: https://www.verical.com/about/

Newsroom: http://www.verical.com/comm/category/news

Blog: “The Electronic Components Source” http://www.verical.com/comm/category/blog

Verical on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Verical

Verical on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Verical

Industry Insights: presentations, articles, websites; https://www.verical.com/about/resources/industry.html

Counterfeit White Paper: “The Real Solution to Fake Parts: Securing Supply Chains through Data Transparency and Better Market Design”; http://bit.ly/counterfeitwhitepaper

About Verical

Verical is the creator of the Verical marketplace, an online outlet for electronic components that provides buyers traceable, branded goods at discount prices. Top manufacturers and franchised distributors publish slow-moving inventory to Verical to optimize prices and yields anonymously. Founded in 2007, Verical is a San Francisco-based start-up backed by Valhalla Partners. The company is experiencing rapid growth with over 27,000 parts available today in the Verical outlet at www.verical.com.

###

DemandMatch is a registered trademark of Verical. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: electronic components, distribution, electronic component catalog, electronic components outlet, excess inventory, online catalog, shortage purchasing, shortages, supply chain integrity, supply chain security, DemandMatch

Media Contact:

Susan D’Elia, media relations for Verical

TECHMarket Communications

650.344.1260

Susan@TECHMarket.com

It turns out that purchasing agents and other corporate buyers are no more forgiving than their consumer-oriented counterparts when it comes to slow, bulky ecommerce sites. And that frustration is playing a large role in the trend to make the online shopping experience faster, more efficient, and more convenient for B2B buyers.

In the electronic components market, major players are revamping their B2B sites with B2C perspectives. Avnet has gone public with its adoption of best practices from consumer sites like Amazon.com. In doing so, company officials admitted that on its previous ecommerce site, “many of our customers had to either be really patient or simply stubborn to make a successful purchase.”

Avnet’s investments in website upgrades have favorably influenced its bottom line. Since refreshing its B2B site, Avnet has seen a 75 percent annual increase in ecommerce revenue and a 50 percent annual increase in site visitors. Similarly, distributors like Premier Farnell, TTI, RS, and Digi-Key have seen their web sales soar. In fact, Digi-Key reports that 66 percent of its sales were received over the web.

Companies that lead the advances in online commerce do so by optimizing their websites to serve a specific buying audience. In electronic components, that audience is the array of buyers with time-critical requirements that use the web heavily to make purchases. For example, production buyers turn to the web when demand rises in the short term and exceeds planned supply. When this happens, volume buyers immediately become shortage buyers with time critical needs.

Historically, manufacturers and distributors have focused their efforts on forecasted distribution which has meant they have not advanced their online capabilities to optimally meet the demands of buyers with time critical requirements. But that’s starting to change. With the increased emphasis on lean manufacturing and persistent volatility in demand, buyers are facing an ever greater need for “on demand” access to supply.

Now more than ever, buyers want their online shopping experiences at work to be like the B2C experiences they have after hours, at sites like Amazon.com, Priceline.com, and the like. They expect it, and companies like Verical are working to bridge the gap between the online shopping experiences in B2B and B2C ecommerce.

For instance, Verical’s recently-announced Bid Button gives shoppers a way to save extra money by submitting fixed bids on clearance items at prices lower than those published on Verical’s catalog listings. The one-click icon automates price negotiations between buyers and sellers, providing fast, hassle-free negotiations and immediate, definitive results. Buyers get instant confirmation of a bid’s acceptance or rejection.

As end-user demand continues to grow, companies will continue refining their B2B sites to reduce the number of screens, screen refreshes, and steps needed to complete a transaction. By making their sites flatter and faster, these companies reduce abandonment and increase conversion rates. Going forward, buyers can expect more B2C-influenced features like the Bid Button and a better overall B2B online shopping experience.