The Extensible Markup Language is getting personal thanks to a new vocabulary specification that defines customer relationships.
CRML, or Customer Relationship Management Language, combines the functionality of two existing XML specifications, namely customer interaction language, or
xCIL, with xNAL, the XML- based name and address language.
The resulting specification goes beyond simple name and address information and supports complex customer relationships including person-to- person,
person-to-business and business-to- business.
CRML has been formally accepted by the Customer Information Quality Technical Committee for the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards, Billerica, Mass.
By capturing non-address customer data like individual e-mail addresses, types of communication devices and other personal details, CRML may give a boost to
emerging business-to- business frameworks such as electronic business XML, commonly known as ebXML, and Universal, Description, Discovery and Integration,
or UDDI, according to Marcus Goncalves, chief technical officer for Lawrence, Mass.-based Virtual Access Networks Inc.
UDDI is a global directory of businesses that helps companies find one other over the Internet. But finding a potential trading partner over the Internet
is one thing, initiating a B2B relationship is quite another.
Goncalves says it’s impossible with the current version of UDDI to track the relationships between a person, his or her company and what they do within
that organization. Global aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co., for example, has 160,000 employees, each with unique relationships within the organization.
Using ebXML transactions and a CRML-enabled UDDI, one could see that Mr. X has this responsibility within this group and reports to Mr. Z. above him
in this group all within the same organization, Goncalves tells ECOMWORLD.com.
So a company looking to provide nuts and bolts to the aviation industry could not only search by name or service or by relationship, he says.
Now you could say, ‘I’m looking to provide nuts and bolts that comply with these buying requirements,’ and the system can search analytically within
Boeing to see if there is a division or group that meets those requirements based on the relationships you want to establish, says Goncalves.
News published 12/17/01 on Ecomworld.com
