Typically, suppliers distribute product information and specifications through paper catalogs and more recently through CD-ROMs. E-business technologies provide significant benefits in moving your product catalog to the web and providing interactive configuration services.

In addition, an online catalog and configurator can provide many enhanced services simply not possible with traditional paper or CD-ROM distribution models. A Design Engineer can search for an end-product based on product type, enter the specific technical requirements of the product in the configurator. The configurator then matches the relevant parts to the specification and can give the engineer a list of all the items required to implement the design. In addition, for specific clarifications, the entire configuration selected by the engineer can be redirected via e-mail to a support staff who could continue the transaction over telephone or return e-mail.