Blue Star joins electronic buying group

By CHRIS BARTON

Online market place builder e://volution has cemented its lead in the electronic management of maintenance repair and operational (MRO) supplies by signing Blue Star Business Supplies Group and travel.co.nz to its e-procurement portal.

The Blue Star Group includes Whitcoulls Office Products, Blue Star Office Products, General Packaging, OTC Workplace Partners and Hollands. With travel.co.nz there are now 20 suppliers providing access to their wares through e://volution.

Steve Phillips, chief executive of NZ Business Blue Star Supply Group, said the group's position was to actively support alliances with electronic marketplaces.

"E://volution is one such buying portal. It has positioned its procurement software as an attractive alternative to some of the larger, US-based systems and its recent marketing agreement with Clear Communications has led to a number of our customers wishing to trial the system."

In July Clear signed an exclusive deal to resell e://volution's online services under the Trading Point brand. E://volution now has 42 clients using the portal including Avis, DB Breweries, Sky Television, Ford and Skycity. It is also currently running pilot projects with Carter Holt Harvey, New Zealand Post and Contact Energy.

The Blue Star move represents something of a change of direction for the company, which was seeking to develop its own market portal codenamed Venice. That project now appears to have morphed into SupplyNet - announced in May and targeting $3 billion a year in public sector buying. The portal, which is not yet functional, will use software supplied by US-based Commerce One half-owned by GSB Supplycorp with 30 per cent held by the Eric Watson-related internet investment company Quixel Capital and 20 per cent by Advantage Group. GSB derives its name from the Government Supplies Board, which was taken private in 1992 and is now owned by a group of private investors.

Blue Star Group manager e-commerce Greg Stone said the Group was now focusing on leveraging its in-house expertise to provided aggregated catalogue services to multiple portals. It's also developing its own e-procurement platform with UK-based Infobank, which it aims to have available in the first quarter of next year. As well as providing to e://volution, Blue Star also expects to trade its products through other "intermediaries" such as the Telecom/EDS/Microsoft isolation marketplace and the Telstra/SAP mySAP.com portal.

At present orders received via e://volution are being rekeyed into Blue Star's system, but Mr Stone said development with Microsoft's Biztalk messaging software is under way to automate the process.

Worldwide businesses are flocking to such electronic marketplaces because of the cost savings delivered through reducing rogue ordering and paper processing, removing inventory and delay from their supply chains, and improving supplier/client relationships through reporting and better access to information.

So far in New Zealand e://volution, which was spun off from an inhouse e-procurement development for Henderson printing firm Norcross, has the lion's share of the fledgling but highly sought market.

While others have announced intentions, none as yet appears to have signed customers. But competition is mounting - particularly from across the Tasman where ANZ Bank's tie up with international portal mro.com is beginning to gain momentum.

But perhaps the biggest threat lies with corProcure, an e-commerce exchange launched in Australia in July, which brings together 14 big name companies, including Telstra, AMP, ANZ Bank, BHP, Coles Myer, Qantas, Foster's Brewing Group, Coca-Cola, Australia Post, Pacific Dunlop and Goodman Fielder.

Links:

www.evolution.co.nz

www.travel.co.nz