B2B Commerce Discovery
Brother International Corporation is a world-renowned company that produces printers and other office equipment, sewing machines, gearmotors, and more. In addition to their B2C commerce business, Brother also has a robust B2B business that supplies machines and parts directly to other businesses. But their B2B business is split up between seven different homegrown commerce platforms. Fuel was engaged along with our partners at RDA Corp, to discuss a solution to unify each business division under a single B2B platform that could support their unique workflows.
A Fuel Digital business analyst supported RDA in this Discovery effort by helping to facilitate a series of requirements sessions. After analyzing the list of requirements Brother provided as well as other current state documentation, an agenda was organized for each session around a specific set of requirements that related to a needed feature or functionality. Stakeholders from each Brother division were asked to participate in these sessions and provide relevant details about their specific needs. The information captured from each session was then used to produce an official product backlog of all features needed for the build of this B2B platform.
This backlog was a key deliverable of the Discovery effort because it laid the foundation for crafting the technical approach and project estimates for a future implementation of this B2B platform. An accurate backlog and acceptance criteria also will reduce overall project risk during implementation because the time was spent in Discovery to understand the true needs of the client and identify ways to consolidate features or use what’s already available.
