Ariba opens up B2B shop in New Zealand

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Ariba, the market-leading, business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce software company, will be targeting more corporates following a successful implementation at Telecom.

Ariba has also announced it has an an agreement with esolutions, the e-commerce joint venture owned by Telecom, Microsoft and EDS, to deliver an electronic marketplace offering through esolutions' BusinessXchange product.

Telecom, which last month deployed its Commerce solution for 166 seats at six sites, is its first customer to go live in the Asia Pacific region, according to Ariba.

Telecom implemented an esolutions BusinessXchange e-procurement solution, based on the Ariba ORMX software.

That integrates online purchasing from participating suppliers with Telecom's back-end systems such as SAP.

Electronic catalogues from eight Telecom suppliers are initially available from OTC Workplace Partners, Moore Gallagher, Eurest New Zealand, Cafaacé Express, Fuji Xerox, New Zealand Liquor, Marshall Promotions, and Wickliffe Press.

Telecom plans to bring a further 12 suppliers online in a second wave this year, as well as installing the system at 2000 further seats internally.

Esolutions general manager Jane Freeman said her company was working with four organisations, including health industry supplier Baxter Healthcare, to develop further B2B marketplaces.

"The vision goes beyond e-procurement.

"That's just the first cab off the rank.

"We are looking at a whole range of services from electronic payment, auctions and reverse auctions [where a buyer obtains quotes from multiple suppliers] to logistics, content services, streamlined transaction routing and analysis."

Ms Freeman said that esolutions had commissioned Arthur Andersen and EDS to research further applications and she promised that many pilots and trials would follow.

While Telecom's B2B installation puts it in a strong position, a flurry of similar announcements both internationally and locally has caused some observers to question whether the number of e-procurement portals and virtual marketplaces will outstrip demand.

However, Dr Mukesh Aghi, Ariba vice-president for Asia Pacific, said B2B had already become a major driver in the United States economy.

Companies were saving between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of their purchasing costs.

"B2B e-commerce creates a very dynamic market between buyers and sellers with no intermediaries and better margins for the seller, lower prices for the buyer."

Dr Aghi believed that even the most optimistic estimates of the growth of B2B e-commerce, which predicted it would be worth $US7.3 trillion ($15.5 trillion) by 2004, still left considerable room for growth.

Businesses that ignored the implications of B2B did so at their peril, Dr Aghi said.

"The US economy is moving increasingly in this direction, so if companies or countries don't adapt to B2B they will find it increasingly difficult to business in the States."

Mark Heard, Ariba's newly appointed country manager for New Zealand, said local companies were now ready to heed this advice.

"Over the past 12 months there has been a considerable amount of education and a lot of people are now perched on the diving board ready to take the plunge.

"There's a pregnant pause at the moment but it's not going to last very long."

Mr Heard said Ariba would be marketing its software directly through the "big five" consulting firms and application service providers such as esolutions would make it available in a form that was affordable to small and medium businesses.

He said a number of international companies would also be installing Ariba at local offices as part of global rollouts.