Online market opens doors across Tasman

By ADAM GIFFORD

Electronic marketplace provider SupplyNet has completed tests with the Cable & Wireless Optus CWO MarketSite in Australia, paving the way for an Australasian business-to-business trading portal.

Both marketplaces are built with software from United States vendor Commerce One.

SupplyNet's new chief operating officer, Carl Mitchell-Turner, said the service now gave New Zealand customers access to 450 suppliers across the Tasman, as well as opening up the Australian market for NZ suppliers.

"Organisations have been asking how they can set up procurement contracts for commodities across their Australasian operations.

"Every tender I've seen over the past year has stepped up to it, then stepped away and said each country can go its own way, because there had not been the infrastructure in place," Mr Mitchell-Turner said.

Optus data and business services managing director Chris Hancock said Optus had completed similar testing with the Singapore marketplace SESAMi, opening the way for regional or global marketplaces.

"Our model is not based on the aggregation of buyers trying to reduce the margins of suppliers. We are interested in an end-to-end trading solution where buyers and suppliers derive value through increased efficiency," Mr Hancock said.

SupplyNet has marketplaces running for GSB Supplycorp, the strategic procurement supplier to the public sector, and SME Connections, which offers a service to property companies which want to offer a procurement service to their tenants.

Six other marketplaces are in pilot phase.

Mr Mitchell-Turner said SupplyNet had so far got about 10 per cent of GSB Supplycorp's 1200 suppliers enabled to the first layer of supplier adoption - essentially putting them into a trading partner directory or online yellow pages setting out what they supply and the terms of that engagement.