PlanetPastel.com, a member of JSE-listed Softline, and ProcureTrade, a joint venture between the AST Group and McCarthy Online, have reached a ground breaking agreement to integrate their business-to-business (B2B) trading hubs.
This agreement, the first of its kind in South Africa, will facilitate trade between the large enterprises using the ProcureTrade hub and the small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) that maintain electronic storefronts and catalogues on PlanetPastel.com.
According to Dennis McCarthy, MD of ProcureTrade, the integration of the two B2B trading platforms will give the communities the ability to start trading with each other immediately without needing to develop new systems or modify their existing applications.
McCarthy believes that the link into PlanetPastel.com's substantial customer base will help the larger enterprises that use ProcureTrade - which include the likes of McCarthy Motor Holdings, Iscor, AST Group and Engen - to develop relationships with SME and black-owned suppliers.
Adds Mike Bryer, Operations Director of the Pastel Group: "The growth of B2B e-commerce in SA is exponential. Research predicts business-to-business e-commerce transactions will touch R4bn this year, up from R2,7bn last year.
"The B2B companies that want to secure the lion's share of these transaction volumes will need to embark on partnerships such as this one - or risk becoming isolated trading islands."
Bryer says this agreement adds another compelling component to the PlanetPastel.com offering, giving catalogues from its customers visibility on a trading hub used by some of South Africa's largest companies.
"In the next phase of the project, we will look to link, through ProcureTrade, into InfoBank trading hubs around the world, giving our users exposure to a global pool of potential customers and suppliers," he adds.
Bryer says the SME businesses that currently use Pastel or Brilliant Accounting will in the future also gain exposure to other suppliers traditionally used by larger companies, enabling them to take advantage of the procurement benefits traditionally enjoyed by larger organisations.
The companies will share the costs of integrating their trading platforms, both of which are built on Microsoft technology. Microsoft SA has voiced its support for the agreement and has agreed to work with the two hubs during the systems integration phase of the project. Dave Marcus, divisional manager of Microsoft SA'S Dot-com Group, says "integration of multivendor trading hubs will become an important element of success in the B2B world. It is pleasing for that reason to see two important players in the South African B2B space working together."
The trend of rival and complementary exchanges working together is likely to accelerate in the near future, adds Bryer. This trend is already evident in the US where the world's three biggest automakers, as well as their rival technology suppliers formed Covisint, an exchange for the auto-parts.
PlanetPastel.com
PlanetPastel.com (www.planetpastel.com) is B2B and B2C, transaction-based portal aimed at small to medium businesses. The PlanetPastel.com portal, developed by Pastel Software and Softline subsidiary, Opensoft, has an existing community of over 140 000 Pastel and Brilliant Business Systems customers. E-commerce functionality for the Pastel and Brilliant accounting packages allows users to design and populate their own on-line stores, which are then hosted for an affordable monthly fee.
ProcureTrade
ProcureTrade is a business-to-business hosted procurement solution centre and electronic trading hub, focusing on helping its customers to improve procurement processes and reduce procurement costs by using Internet technologies. The ProcureTrade solution is based on InfoBank's electronic trading system and includes e-Purchasing solutions that integrate Internet-based technologies with purchasing cards, electronic catalogues, workflow and back-office integration.
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