Edifecs Ships CommerceDesk 4.0, Solution to
No. 1 B2B E-commerce Bottleneck
Edifecs CommerceDesk 4.0 streamlines,
automates process of bringing trading
partners online
Bellevue, WA (November 13, 2000) --
Edifecs, a provider of B2B technology
solutions and services driving the
global adoption of e-commerce, today
announced availability of Edifecs
CommerceDesk 4.0, the first comprehensive
solution for alleviating manual trading-partner
enablement, revealed as the No. 1
bottleneck restricting B2B e-commerce
today in a recent survey.
Enablement is the necessary set of
processes and relationships that a
company and its trading partners must
establish to ready their B2B community
for transactions and to manage its
growth. The ongoing process, which
is performed manually today, encompasses
four distinct phases: trading-partner
ramp-up; scaling of additional partners;
managing trading-partner relationships;
and analyzing and modifying them.
Edifecs CommerceDesk 4.0 helps companies
rapidly extend trading-partner relationships
across their entire supply chain and
throughout their trading networks,
including both e-marketplaces and
traditional hub-and-spoke networks.
CommerceDesk addresses all of a community's
enablement over its lifetime with
trading-partner management; program
management and collaboration; testing
and validation; community administration;
and standards and specification development.
By simplifying and automating trading-partner
enablement, Edifecs CommerceDesk 4.0
allows companies to speed up-by
an estimated 55 percent to 65 percent-the
process of bringing their partners
online, resulting in dramatic savings
of time and resources.
The challenge of enablement
in trading-partner networks is going
largely unaddressed, which is what
makes Edifecs CommerceDesk such a
timely and critical solution,
said Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh. CommerceDesk
is the only product that provides
an effective, automated solution to
help trading partners tackle these
difficult and protracted steps. That's
why we believe Edifecs CommerceDesk
will drive a faster adoption of B2B
e-commerce on a global scale.
In a recent Edifecs survey of nearly
400 e-commerce managers from a cross-section
of companies, 56 percent of respondents
reported their company is doing business
with less than a quarter of its current
trading-partner base. The survey also
revealed that ramping-up just one
electronic process with a new trading
partner takes an average of 103 days.
Survey participants indicated, across
the board, that they expect to more
than double the percentage of their
trading-partner base with which they
currently engage in B2B e-commerce.
Due to its unique focus on the pervasive
enablement challenge, Edifecs CommerceDesk
is able to achieve striking scalability
by complementing a wide array of existing
B2B solutions offered by B2B system
integrators, service providers, e-marketplace
providers and buy/sell-side application
providers; value-added networks (VANs);
and by industry consortia.
Based on cross-platform technologies
such as Sun Java, the CommerceDesk
4.0 solution consists of both server-
and desktop-based components. With
CommerceDesk, service providers or
enterprises can host trading-partner
communities accessible by all trading
partners over the Internet through
standard Web browsers.
The CommerceDesk 4.0 solution consists
of:
· CommerceDesk Server-The
core Web-based community functionality,
including trading-partner management,
collaboration, testing and validation,
administration, and reporting.
· Applications-Add-on
component functionality, such as solutions
for deploying Web-based forms for
use by non-EDI enabled partners.
· Tools-Desktop tools
tightly integrated with CommerceDesk
Server, such as Edifecs SpecBuilder™,
the industry's leading schema-authoring
and management suite, and the upcoming
Edifecs FormsBuilder™ Web forms
solution.
· Standards-A comprehensive
repository for managing and sharing
the latest guidelines and specifications
among partner.
· Services-Professional
services for deployment, customization,
training, and support.
General Electric Global eXchange
Services (GXS), an Edifecs partner,
is using CommerceDesk to help solve
critical enablement challenges for
clients of the 100,000-member GXS
value-added network. GXS is one of
the first leading B2B solutions providers
to recognize how the CommerceDesk
solution can help companies reduce
the time and cost of bringing their
trading partners online to begin conducting
B2B supply-chain transactions.
"Companies are now realizing
that B2B e-commerce only works if
you can build a community," said
Otto Kumbar, Vice President of Interchange
Solutions at GE Global eXchange Services.
"Our Net Community Manager offering,
built on Edifecs CommerceDesk, is
key to any successful B2B community."
The licensing of Edifecs CommerceDesk
by GE Global eXchange Services is
a tremendous validation of our unique
approach to online trading-partner
enablement, said Edifecs CEO
Sunny Singh. We're very
proud that a such a global leader
turned to Edifecs to become a key
technology provider to its overall
community-management solution.
Edifecs is licensing three versions
of CommerceDesk, varying according
to partner type and trading-community
size, through the Edifecs Partner
Network to providers who will benefit
from incorporating a CommerceDesk
community into their solutions and
service offerings. Prices for CommerceDesk
Enterprise Edition start at $100,000,
while CommerceDesk Service Edition
and CommerceDesk Exchange Edition
each start at $500,000.
About Edifecs
Edifecs (www.edifecs.com) is dedicated
to expediting business-to-business
e-commerce through two primary product
lines: its CommerceDesk partner-enablement
system, designed to automate and accelerate
the deployment of trading networks,
and its Business Collaboration Services,
which optimize value-net business
models by providing collaboration-modeling
services to supply-chain partnerships.
Founded in 1996, Edifecs serves an
installed base of more than 1,000
customers including Boeing, Microsoft,
IBM, Gillette, Eastman Kodak, Sony,
Barnes & Noble, and Dura Automotive.
The company partners with numerous
B2B providers such as GE Global eXchange
Services, iPlanet and Sterling Commerce,
and is a technology-solution partner
for more than 30 industry consortia
including RosettaNet, CompTIA, and
the Supply Chain Council. Based in
Bellevue, Washington, Edifecs is privately
held, with investment from GE Global
eXchange Services.
Edifecs and CommerceDesk are registered
trademarks of Edifecs.
All other company and product names
are the property of their respective
owners.
