Local supplier beats big names

By ADAM GIFFORD

Electronic marketplace developer e://volution E-Business has spent almost $1 million developing the latest version of its product suite, Siteworks.

Managing director Henry Norcross said even at that cost e://volution would be able to offer services to its customers at a lower price than if they had used one of the United States-developed marketplace products.

The company looked at the big name products, but decided to stick with IBM's Websphere tool set, hiring IBM to write the revised application.

"Working as an application service provider [ASP], we will be able to license a marketplace for between $50,000 to $75,000, as well as hosting and support of $5000 or so a month. That's a workable model."

The company has several marketplaces and vertical exchanges live or in development. It hosts Orange Exchange (www.orangex.net) for pharmacies and general practitioners and the Vetgate veterinary portal (www.vetgate.co.nz).

It is running the market site New Zealand Dairy Foods uses to communicate with its 85 franchisees, and it has set up a subsidiary, arq Peripheral Management, to manage customers' indirect spend.

Mr Norcross said to participate in e-commerce, businesses needed to be able to do electronic procurement, create business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) sites and market sites.

They also needed to closely integrate their operations with their large suppliers and customers. While the original e://volution system was revolutionary for its time, problems were emerging with scalability and integration.

Mr Norcross said e://volution was benefiting from the $1 billion IBM had spent on Websphere.

Siteworks contains more sophisticated work flow, for example splitting up approvals.

One of the criticisms of the old system, and in fact any marketplace system, is the difficulty and expense of integrating with multiple systems.

Siteworks includes a new module, i works, which incorporates middleware developed by Auckland company Transoft.

"The alternative, IBM MQ Series, was too pricey and you've got to buy adapters for each different supplier system, which is the wrong model," Mr Norcross said.

"If you can't stand a marketplace up for under $100,000 here, including integration, it won't work."

Siteworks uses XML for file structures and messaging, as well as Java Applets and Java Beans. It uses Apache Web Server and can run on Unix or NT operating systems, if companies want to host their own marketplaces.

Another new module is Payworks for bill presentation and payment. It allows users to view invoices, select invoices for payment down to the level of selecting individual items for payment, initiate credit requests and review payment schedules and histories.

It will handle a range of payment options including direct debit, credit cards and eventually secure eftpos transactions.

Companies that want to run loyalty programmes or participate in existing programmes can use the Loyalty Works module, developed in association with the loyalty programme processing company Marketsmart.

Mr Norcross said arq Peripheral Management was a procurement services provider that took the complexity out of buying. It had been rolled out into Southern Cross Healthcare.

He said suppliers could also benefit for authoritative service ratings, which might allow them to negotiate better margins when contracts come up for review.

arq Peripheral Management