YOU MAY NOT KNOW IT, but you’re leaving millions on the table when it comes to business-to-business e-commerce.

In this special two-part report, we show you how to hurdle the two main obstacles that stand between you and all that money: the security of your external connections and a lack of online trading partners.

In How to Practice Safe B2B, IT and security leaders spell out their security requirements for their online partners and explain how they make sure their partners comply.

In How to Grow Your B2B Network (Page 60), companies reveal the techniques they’re using to attract new partners, thereby maximizing their B2B savings and revenue.

The money is there. Go for it.

In summer 2000, Visa unveiled its "Digital Dozen," a list of security requirements calling for firewalls, encryption, testing and access policies that its service providers and merchants must have as a condition of doing business with Visa. That’s right?if a bank or merchant can’t play by these rules, they don’t play with Visa.

Visa’s merchants and service providers must annually demonstrate compliance, through an online self-assessment for Mom-and-Pop shops and extensive third-party audits for merchants or service providers handling large volumes of cardholder information. And if a merchant refuses to comply, Visa can fine the bank that processes that store’s transactions. Then it’s up to the bank to punish the merchants. "Eventually, if we don’t have proof from an independent third party that you qualify with our requirements, we really don’t want you to take the card," says John Shaughnessy, Visa USA’s senior vice president of risk management in Tampa, Fla.

Not everybody is as deadly serious about B2B e-commerce partner security as is Visa. In the stampede to e-commerce, most companies have disregarded the security of their partners and their role in exerting pressure to make sure they’re safe. "My sense is that B2B security is not a consideration for many organizations," says James Wade, chief security officer for the Federal Reserve System and president of Framingham, Mass.-based ISC2, a training and professional certification organization for IT security professionals. Many B2B relationships spawn from manufacturing, marketing or some other group within an organization without involving IT security.

That may or may not be the case in your company, but regardless, it’s your responsibility to see to the security credentials of your B2B partners. "The security of your B2B partner is as important as their creditworthiness," says Paul Gaffney, CIO of Staples, the office-products retailer based in Framingham, Mass.