BIDvest, South Africa`s largest service and trading company with an annual turnover of R26.4-billion, will be serving its 350 000 customers through an electronic business-to-business (B2B) portal powered by Microsoft technologies. The initial phase of the project includes adapting internal trading processes between BIDvest`s 750 companies and branches to an e-commerce environment. The portal, mymarket.com, will be a tried and tested market place before it is rolled out to BIDvest`s trading partners in June 2001.
"BIDvest has not traditionally favoured a group technology strategy," says Philip Katz, managing director at mymarket.com. "However, an e-procurement site will allow us to add value to our customers by lowering transaction costs, and saving time - thereby freeing up resources and facilitating growth opportunities. The site is designed to compliment our existing structures and our conventional business model will remain unchanged with the goal of delivering goods to our customers in perfect condition, in good time, and at the lowest possible cost."
"When choosing a technology partner and a suitable platform for mymarket.com, we recognised Microsoft as the world leader in desktop applications, and see e-commerce as another desktop application," continues Katz. "For the portal to be successful it needs to be easy to use and flexible enough to support our business needs. Microsoft was able to provide agile business solutions with their expert technical skills and product capabilities on a local and international level."
Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) is working closely with BIDvest and implementation partner, Aqua-online, on the architectural design of the mymarket.com portal as well as the development and testing phases of the site. "With a project of this size, and deployment of the latest products available including Windows 2000, BizTalk 2000 and Commerce Server 2000, MCS wanted to be as close to the development team as possible," says Hennie Loubser managing consultant at Microsoft South Africa. "Our objective is to reduce BIDvest`s technical risk and ensure best practice standards are adhered to." Expert knowledge was also gleaned from similar Microsoft projects being deployed elsewhere in the world to ensure a successful and smooth deployment, as well as foresee any possible requirements for additional skills and resources.
"When looking to provide customers with a set of flexible and personalised services at the Web site front-end, it is crucial to deploy a robust back-office system that is capable of providing a secure, reliable, highly scalable commerce infrastructure necessary for today`s competitive business environment," continues Loubser. "Openness is the key criteria for back-office applications in the e-commerce world, and these systems should integrate comfortably with other applications and systems used by BIDvest, as well as those of BIDvest`s customers."
"BIDvest is creating an enabling environment that will not only introduce the benefits of supply-chain management software and supply-chain efficiencies to customers, but will also allow them to sell their goods on mymarket.com," says Katz. "e-Procurement will also facilitate partnering with key suppliers, as the immediate availability of information enables buyers to assess complete supplier information including cost, delivery, quality, flexibility and other supply chain measures on a real-time basis."
"Being a traditional brick and mortar retailer, BIDvest already has excellent warehousing and logistics infrastructure in place and is in good shape for the online world," says Loubser. "Our challenge is to leverage this infrastructure and integrate it with technology into an e-commerce savvy business."
Mymarket.com will provide significant cost savings, operational benefits and improved business efficiencies to BIDvest and its customers. Mymarket.com can be customised according to the individual needs of each customer, and will allow customers to manage their buying and selling needs in the market. Mymarket.com is not a closed market place and will encourage a wide range of competing suppliers to trade with a known customer base.
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