Telkom has been awarded a three-year contract by Siemens for the supply of e-marketplace services that will enable Siemens to trade electronically with suppliers of non-operational items.
Telkom`s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Nombulelo Moholi, said Siemens` decision to award Telkom the contract followed the successful completion of a pilot project for a closed e-marketplace on CyberTrade Xchange, which would provide Siemens with a central facility for electronic procurement of non-operational items.
"The success of the pilot left no doubt in our minds that the Telkom-hosted business solution for electronic trading was the right choice for us," said Fritz Klaassen of Siemens.
Telkom has also concluded contracts with some of Siemens` suppliers enabling them to trade electronically with the company.
"CyberTrade Xchange allows its members to enter the global trading market in a secure and horizontal electronic business-to-business trading environment that entitles them to collaborate with other trading partners," said Telkom Business Integration Services Development Manager, Pieter van der Merwe.
He explained that CyberTrade Xchange was hosted in the Telkom Data Centre and offered tight service level agreements. It also eased the integration problems customers experienced when switching electronic documents between various enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. CyberTrade Xchange simplified this integration and required only a single link to the platform either via a Telkom Access medium or via the Internet.
"From a buyer`s perspective, we take care of supplier adoption thus eliminating the need for the buyer to be concerned with supplier technology limitations, integration and security considerations. We set up the many-to-one electronic trading relationships, catalogues, customised company workflow approval, buying organisation structure, and the utilisation of CyberTrade Xchange`s hosted procurement business solutions to enable electronic trading," said Van der Merwe.
"From a supplier`s perspective we enable the one-to-many electronic trading relationships and distribute catalogue content to the buyers."
There was also no need to publish a supplier`s catalogue on other marketplaces. CyberTrade Xchange would distribute catalogue content to other marketplaces, if required, hence a single source to manage product content, customer data, orders, tracking and tracing of orders, advanced shipping notification and electronic invoicing.
"Where corporate buyers and suppliers do not have an ERP application, CyberTrade Xchange offers them hosted business-to-business applications such as CyberTrade Procurement, CyberTrade Order Management and CyberTrade Auctions.
"However, we also switch electronic documents between ERP systems and act as a document switch gateway or combination of electronic trading options," said Van der Merwe.
The platform also featured other forms of electronic integration such as EDI, forms-based EDI, Telkom`s MessageGate and Enhanced Fax services.
"For example, CyberTrade Xchange can enable the switching of the electronic documents of a medium-sized corporate on EDI to a small supplier subscribed to the CyberTrade Exchange Order Management hosted application or forms based EDI applications. CyberTrade Xchange is the enabler of electronic trading."
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