One reason we see the term "Global 2000" to describe the world's most successful e-businesses--they're conducting business on a global basis. But operations such as indirect procurement still happen largely on a regional basis, says Commerce One Inc.'s Chief Technology Officer Thomas Gonzales. "Our vision is to deliver [business-to-business commerce] on a global scale," he says, by setting up a "global trading Web." Such a trading Web will help companies deal with both direct and indirect purchasing, which Gonzales says need to be handled differently. Indirect goods and services are those used by businesses internally rather than for processing into goods or services.
For a start, Commerce One has brought out BuySite 6.0, the newest version of the company's electronic procurement application. Let's say you want an employee in the United States to create a requisition that needs to be approved by a purchasing manager in Germany and sent to a supplier in the United Kingdom. Rather than using separate systems to handle each country's language and currency (which is costly, not to mention problematic), companies can standardize on a single installation of BuySite 6.0, which now supports multiple languages (German, French, UK English, and Japanese, with more to come); all major world currencies; international date, number, and address formats; and international tax requirements. The application is available this quarter ranging from US$500,000 to US$2.5 million.
Commerce One's applications are in use at several large telecommunications firms, including British Telecom. BT recently conducted its first live online transactions by placing internal orders through Commerce One BuySite on Commerce One's MarketSite.net, a business-to-business e-commerce portal. By improving the internal process for purchasing, BT has already reduced the average cost of a purchasing transaction from £70 (US$113) to £50 (US$80). BT estimates that the cost per transaction will fall again to £5 ($8) as a result of the use of BT MarketSite.
Commerce One has also signed several strategic partnerships. The company is working with TradingDynamics, Inc. to add new auction and reverse auction capabilities to MarketSite.net. It has also inked a deal with Compaq Computer Corporation, who will work with Commerce One as well as Clarus Corporation and Microsoft to deliver e-procurement solutions.