Comparex Holdings, through its African business PQ Africa, has joined forces with one of South Africa`s premier logistics and transportation groups, Unitrans Limited, to create a business-to-business (B2B) electronic market place for the household goods industry. This electronic market place - or hub - will concentrate on the furniture as well as white and brown goods industries and will realise significant supply chain savings for all participants by streamlining procurement and fulfillment processes and providing better service to customers. Leading industry participants, with a combined annual retail turnover of approximately R7 billion, have firmly committed to work together with Comparex and Unitrans to establish the hub.
It is anticipated that retailers and manufacturers in related household goods industries may utilise the services of the hub. It is further intended to roll out this concept through dedicated portals of this hub to other industries where similar supply chain savings could be achieved.
A new company provisionally named electronicMarketSpace ("Newco") and controlled by Comparex and Unitrans, has been formed to house the hub. Comparex will be the IT- and Unitrans, through Roadway Logistics (Pty) Ltd, the fulfillment partner. Newco will focus on the supply chain, which currently links industry manufacturers, suppliers, retailers and customers. Following implementation Newco will provide comprehensive Supply Chain Management Services using the latest technology based solutions. Newco`s revenues will be transaction based. The "Bricks and Mortar" components - trucks, warehouses, distribution centres, etc - will be optimally managed, but not necessarily owned by Roadway Logistics (Pty) Ltd. "We want to work together with each of the existing participants in the supply chain to reduce existing costs and improve overall efficiencies" says Jo Grov'e, CEO of Unitrans.
The industry is inefficient in the procurement and fulfillment areas, prompting Comparex CEO Rian du Plessis to describe the market as "way overdue" for an e-commerce solution. "By driving down these costs, participants will become far more profitable."
Grov'e says the advantages for participants will include lower stock levels, lower ordering costs, on-line access to the latest product and pricing information, immediate order placement, access to a far wider product offering and higher levels of transactional integrity through Newco`s fully secure IT infrastructure.
Participating manufacturers` catalogues of products and services will be created, hosted on Newco`s infrastructure and presented to retailers electronically. Newco will provide the backbone for the procurement process, fulfillment (including logistics), settlement and tracking the status of orders. Further benefits to the industry include being able to publish their products, services and pricing information in real time. Orders will automatically reflect the latest product and price changes, resulting in greatly reduced administrative inefficiencies. Retailers will also be able to track order status and delivery.
According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), eCommerce facilitates improved demand forecasting and replenishment of products, which cuts inventories by 20% - 25%. The electronic procurement process has been shown to cut the time necessary to process orders by between 50% and 96% and web customer-service interface materially reduces errors which can save customer service costs by between 10% and 50%.
Du Plessis concludes, "The hub is not about taking away a competitive advantage that any of the participants might have today. Nor is it about giving any specific participant an advantage that it doesn`t have today. It is about doing more business and doing business more cost effectively using electronic means. In discussions with industry players, confidentiality of participants` respective competitive information was considered to be of paramount importance. Comparex`s track record in secure electronic commerce made it the ideal technology partner."
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Comparex
Comparex has an annual turnover of approximately EURO 1 billion, with offices throughout EMEA, a workforce of over 7 000 and derives more than half of its revenues from continental Europe. Subsequent to the sale of its European network businesses, the group has re-positioned and focuses on eBusiness Solutions. Its customers include the leading companies in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Southern Africa, Slovakia, Spain and the Czech Republic. Comparex holds 50% minus one share in PQ Africa. PQ Africa is South Africa`s leading provider of competitive, innovative and flexible business solutions based on Information and Communication Technology ("ICT").
Comparex is listed on the JSE and trades under the symbol CPX. Further information on Comparex can be obtained at its corporate Web site, which can be accessed at www.comparexgroup.com
Unitrans
Unitrans has an annual turnover of approximately R4,5 billion, with offices through Southern African and a workforce of over 7 800. Unitrans is a focused transport and logistics group which is listed on the JSE. Further information on Unitrans can be obtained at its corporate Web site, which can be accessed at www.unitrans.co.za