By ADAM GIFFORD
Despite the mass of products promising to make a company's business processes internet-ready, Wang New Zealand has developed its own web portal.
Chief executive Garth Biggs said there was nothing available to meet Wang's demands.
The portal, called my.Business, is designed for Wang's client base of large corporates and Government organisations, but will also sell as a standalone product.
Wang's clients will be able to order products, manage projects and services, including ordering and tracking fault calls, and view invoice and statement information online and in real time.
"It makes it easier to do business with each other, and gives customers access so they can input directly into our system without an intermediary, which reduces error and cuts costs," Mr Biggs said.
The portal avoided licensing issues that could arise when remote users accessed proprietary applications.
"The licensing is simplified because we take people into the databases underlying the applications. Most customers are satisfied with simple access."
While the portal cost just over $500,000 to build, it is underpinned by two years and $10 million of internal development, which included the installation of PeopleSoft financials, Vantive customer relationship management software, and Artemis project management applications. It is designed to work with any enterprise resource planning system.
Mr Biggs said my.Business was available free to Wang's customers, but the company stood to earn licence fees and implementation and development fees when those clients extended their own business-to-business transactions to their customers.
Wang is 60 per cent owned by Qixel Capital Group, the Eric Watson-Evan Christian company that also has stakes in Advantage Group and Blue Star.
Mr Biggs said Advantage was also designing portals for electronic commerce.
"We expect to tap into Advantage's strengths at the front end and in creative areas.
"We bring more to bear in infrastructure management."
He said Wang was also talking to Blue Star about designing a portal.
My.Business uses Microsoft component technology to create eight dedicated "service objects" providing customised links to back-end systems at Wang.
While its developers claim the portal is browser-agnostic, access to the demo using Netscape over a 28Kb modem proved slow and crashed quickly.
Even in Internet Explorer, it feels like a site built for corporate networks with high-speed connections.
Mr Biggs said one aim of the project was to give Wang experience in building e-commerce and business-to-business systems.
"A year ago we were doing more client-server work. Now we are doing more e-commerce work, there is a credibility statement in the work we have done."
Wang opens its portal to meet online demands
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