Commerce One announces availability of collaborative procurement solution

Commerce One, Inc, the e-marketplace company, has announced the immediate availability of Commerce One Collaborative Procurement, the next generation of e-procurement solutions.

This offering combines the company`s market-leading procurement applications with extensive, real-time information exchange between trading partners to maximise return on investment for buyers and suppliers by keeping transactions completely online.

"The first generation of e-procurement solutions established online transactions between buyers and suppliers. However, order changes, for example, often required a phone call, which moved transactions offline and diminished return on investment," said Mike Micucci, vice president of solution strategy for Commerce One.

"Collaborative procurement keeps buyers and suppliers online throughout the entire procurement process, from sourcing through payment. This will help both buyers and suppliers save time and money."

According to a study by RB Webber and Company, the Commerce One solution is expected to save buyers an additional 46% in process costs compared with traditional e-procurement solutions. It is expected that the offering will enable collaborative communication throughout the entire source-to-pay process, with support for complex requirements such as interactive order changes, expanding the benefits of e-procurement for both buyers and suppliers. The solution supports the procurement of a broad spectrum of goods and services.

Collaborative Procurement tackles the challenge of supplier participation in business-to-business e-commerce by enabling an enterprise to create a supplier portal. The portal allows suppliers to respond to RFQs and order changes and provide real-time shipping and invoice details directly to the buyer. The expected benefits to suppliers include the capability to collaborate on catalogues, inventory, order changes, shipping, invoice and payment. The solution is expected to significantly reduce order fulfilment costs and enable suppliers to increase working capital by reducing DSO (days sales outstanding).

New, advanced features will enable buyers to plan better for product delivery, automate order changes and leverage early payment terms with all trading partners. In addition to the supplier portal, buyers have access to more than 150 000 suppliers through Commerce One e-marketplaces linked through the Global Trading Web, the world`s largest business-to-business trading community.

"With its Collaborative Procurement solution, Commerce One delivers a common infrastructure for automating and integrating the complete range of procurement activities - from sourcing to ordering to supplier management," said Tim Minahan, vice president of supply chain research, Aberdeen Group.

"Built on the Commerce One open marketplace platform, Collaborative Procurement is a highly flexible solution that grows with a company`s procurement needs and comfort level, enabling a buying organisation to gain a quick and continuous ROI."

Collaborative Procurement leverages Enterprise Buyer, a joint solution from SAPMarkets and Commerce One, as well as key collaboration capabilities from Commerce One MarketSite, the e-marketplace operating environment. With Collaborative Procurement, enterprises have the platform to extend capabilities with additional supply- or demand-based applications from Commerce One or other partners.

Key capabilities of the Collaborative Procurement solution include:

• .         Procurement:

  
  

  utomates the entire purchasing cycle through real-time, inter-enterprise collaboration. Important features include access to more than 150 000 suppliers via the Global Trading Web, real-time price and availability checks, collaborative order changes and ERP integration with pre-built connectors.

• .         Supplier Management:

  
  

  Enables buyers to manage suppliers directly through a self-service supplier portal. Features include the ability to control participation in the trading environment while managing supplier adoption and content processes directly through a robust set of order management and content tools.

• .         Contractor Management:

  
  

  Allows enterprises to monitor and control contractor spend. Features include the ability to track and control contractor time and expense cost, while automating timecard and expense report transmissions, approvals, payment to staffing suppliers and contractor rate comparisons.

• .         Dynamic Bidding:

  
  

  Provides integrated reverse auction/RFQ and spot-buy capabilities. Important features include the ability to support ad-hoc purchases and contract awards, multi-variable bidding to allow supplier differentiation beyond price, Web-based bidding event set up and bidding process to enhance supplier collaboration and reduce cycle time, and integrated procurement and sourcing to allow seamless creation of purchase orders from winning bids.

• .         Payment:

  
  

  Streamlines payment and invoice processing. Features include integrated payment and financial services, electronic invoices and payment initiation, tracking and invoice dispute notification.