Boost for trading site builder

By CHRIS BARTON

Clear has put its weight behind local e-procurement market builder e://volution in an exclusive deal to resell its online services.

The deal is understood to be worth about $500,000 over two years.

Clear will launch e://volution's online supply chain management system under the Trading Point brand as part of Clear's suite of e-business services.

The service provides businesses with the means to manage online the whole process - from order to fulfilment - of consumable and operational supplies, such as office stationery products.

Catalogues specific to each customer can be viewed via a web browser and users can place orders, seek authorisation, check order status and receipt online.

As well as linking buyers and sellers over the internet, e-procurement systems also link with the customer's existing computer system and requisitioning procedures.

The Trading Point portal, which e-business manager Wayne Nicholas said would be functioning in about a week, allows Clear to leapfrog Telecom's e-solutions offerings by immediately providing e-procurement services.

While Telecom has rolled out an e-procurement solution internally using Ariba software, it has yet to provide it to other customers.

"The trick is to get to market as quickly as possible, but with credible solutions," said Mr Nicholas.

Clear has been using e://volution for its own procurement needs for six months. Mr Nicholas estimated about $200 million worth of maintenance, repair and operational supplies bought by Clear business customers would be passing through Trading Point within the next two years.

Clear and e://volution will share the transaction fees associated with those purchases.

The deal adds credibility to e://volution's claim that it is the leading internet trading site builder in New Zealand.

The managing director of e://volution, Henry Norcross, said: "We've now got 40 buying companies and numerous suppliers providing potential e-procurement purchases of $1 billion.

"We're working with Government departments and the top corporates and have strong alliances with IBM and KPMG to develop the technology further. To top it all off, Clear has endorsed us."

Mr Norcross said the company - spun off from an internal e-procurement development within the Norcross Group last year - was negotiating with investors which could add "significant value to the supply chain."

E://volution is part of a worldwide trend by companies to use internet trading hubs to cut costs by removing inventory, paperwork and delay from their supply chains and bringing more suppliers into previously exclusive electronic networks. Worldwide e-commerce exchanges are expected to handle sales of more than $US2 trillion ($3.4 trillion) by 2004.

Two days ago an e-commerce exchange, corProcure, was launched in Australia bringing together 14 companies, including Telstra, AMP, ANZ Bank, BHP, Coles Myer, Qantas, Foster's Brewing Group, Coca-Cola, Australia Post, Pacific Dunlop and Goodman Fielder.