E-marketplace company Commerce One says FirstRand has become its first South African partner in the financial services industry.
The alliance sees Commerce One`s e-procurement solution, Enterprise Buyer, rolled out to member companies within FirstRand. Commerce One will also provide a hosted e-commerce trading platform for businesses to FNB corporate clients.
The initial phase of the project involved a three-month e-procurement pilot at FNB Corporate, a division of FirstRand Bank. Iris Dempsey, executive director at FNB Corporate, says: "FNB Corporate has also included e-procurement into its hosted e-commerce trading platform, to facilitate trade between buyers and sellers locally, regionally and internationally. This procure-to-pay solution is the first delivery of a combined value proposition to our clients."
"Through the pilot implementation, FirstRand proved that it has the correct mix of infrastructure and expertise to provide a world-class hosted solution as an approved Commerce One hosting partner," says Michael Bosman, CEO of Commerce One South Africa, Distributor Operations.
Toni Sanders, GM of e-procurement solutions at FirstRand`s new business incubator, SCION, says: "FNB Corporate can host more than sourcing and buying solutions. By integrating electronic bill presentment, reconciliation, consolidation and payment into the procurement process, the company has created a genuine source-to-pay hosted solution."
Sanders says FNB Corporate immediately saw a number of key benefits, including a dramatic reduction in process costs, with key savings in the automation and control of reconciliation and payment processes.
FNB Corporate currently has about 350 users buying goods and services from some 50 suppliers. This part of the project represents about 10% of the potential internal roll-out of Commerce One applications to other divisions in the group.
Sanders predicts a key future benefit for FirstRand will be the ability to leverage the group of companies` overall spend, while still enabling each independent profit centre complete autonomy in making procurement decisions.
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