Miraculum Xchange sees usage, trade volumes increase

By Basheera Khan, UK correspondent, ITWeb

Johannesburg, 24 Apr 2001

Miraculum, the e-procurement company established late last year, has completed its installations of its e-procurement solution at two client companies - anchor tenant Old Mutual, and The Internet Solution (IS), which is a subsidiary of Dimension Data, also an anchor tenant.

"They`ve been going really well; they`re all live, and everyone`s quite pleased because usage and volumes of transactions are starting to grow quite nicely. IS is processing about a quarter of a million rand in trade per day, and the product`s been rolled out to about 800 Old Mutual users so far," says Miraculum MD Brandon Spear.

Integration into Miraculum Xchange took place about six weeks ago, and Spear says those using it are happy with the results.

Differences in approach

These first clients differ greatly in size and scope, and as such have had to be dealt with in completely different ways.

"We normally have three sizes of customers, and three different ways of dealing with them. Large customers, like Old Mutual, acquire the e-procurement software and deploy it throughout the enterprise."

This approach entails a large, extensive deployment project, says Spear, and though it costs more to the client - between R1 million or R2 million, and R10 million or R20 million, depending on the size of the company, it makes sense for large companies.

"With medium-sized clients, like IS, they still want the use of e-procurement software, but don`t necessarily want to buy it. We have a hosted service for them, also known as an application service provider model."

This would cost a medium enterprise between R100 000 and R200 000, he says - again dependent on the company size.

For smaller organisations, where there is only one person involved in procurement, it makes no sense to implement a full e-procurement solution, Spear says. This type of user merely logs-on the exchange through the Web interface as and when there is a need.

Medium enterprises offer value

Spear believes the most value to be had for e-procurement solution vendors is in the medium-sized enterprise space. To unlock this value, Miraculum needs to get to as many suppliers as possible, he says. Its strategy then is to do the most challenging part of the process - cataloguing of databases - at no charge. Suppliers then pay a transaction fee off any deals that are facilitated through the Miraculum Xchange.

"There are only 15 or 20 companies in SA large enough to buy their own software. I think smaller companies will follow the IS route."

In addition, Spear adds, a big part of Miraculum`s work until now involved bedding down core technologies - which is why it`s taken eight months to produce results. Now, once companies commit to the solution, it should take between two and three months to implement, he assures.

Future plans

Spear says the company has plans to roll-out similar solutions to other companies in the Dimension Data stable. There is also a broad-based plan to involve professional services companies such as Dimension Data, the recently launched Consilience Technologies and the Big Five consulting companies.