LAS VEGAS, Jan. 22, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- PurchasePro (Nasdaq:PPRO) today announced the release of e-Source 7.5, incorporating significant improvements to the industry's most comprehensive strategic sourcing solution and purchasing process.
e-Source 7.5 goes beyond reverse auctions and provides customers with a complete sourcing solution and automated procurement process, enabling buyers to quantify spend analysis, qualify additional suppliers, enhance RFI and RFQ management, cultivate competitive bidding and negotiations and manage supplier relationships.
e-Source 7.5 also provides users with supply chain process improvements that include enterprise-wide functionality, dynamic drag and drop workflow design tools and immediate sourcing assistance from anywhere within the application. The new release, which is now in use by PurchasePro's clients, also includes a complete set of new software tools to reduce sourcing costs of direct and indirect products and services and reduce enterprise-wide procurement costs.
"We believe the purchasing process and software enhancements we've made to e-Source 7.5 make it the most advanced sourcing solution in the industry," said Chris Benyo, senior vice president of PurchasePro. "e-Source 7.5 is more than a reverse auction tool -- it is a strategic sourcing solution that can be the most critical element of an organization's procurement process.
"PurchasePro's sourcing process has been proven repeatedly throughout organizations worldwide, generating procurement efficiencies and price reductions that have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of savings."
Michael Mendoza, global e-procurement leader for Owens Corning, said, "We've found that e-Source 7.5 provides our organization with a real-world sourcing solution that enhances our purchasing process, enables us to find and qualify suppliers faster, host smarter more efficient auctions and become a stronger competitor in our industry."
e-Source 7.5 provides organizations with continued enhancements to the strategic sourcing process, including:
-- Consortium Purchasing -- e-Source 7.5 brings the power of
consortium buying to large and small companies. The new
consortium console allows companies to aggregate their product
purchases into an auction event, providing buyers with deep
volume discounts and the power to buy as one entity. The
consortium console enables users to package their procurement
expenditures throughout a department, a division, worldwide
organization or their industry.
-- Dynamic Drag and Drop Workflow Design -- PurchasePro's enhanced
sourcing tool provides companies with a workflow design that is
easy to configure. Companies may design their workflow by
dragging and dropping icons into the e-Source application.
e-Source 7.5 enables multiple workflows to be easily designed and
saved, dictated by a company's procurement process. Buyers can
check the status of an RFQ from anywhere within the user's
designated workflow, avoiding costly delays and making sourcing
easier and more efficient.
-- Active Help -- e-Source provides buyers with active help and an
e-Source virtual assistant that enables users to maximize the
benefits of the strategic sourcing software. The e-Source
assistant is content-sensitive, enabling the user to access
immediate assistance without leaving the current screen. For
additional information, users can actively search help modules
via a table of contents, index or by specific words.
-- Enhanced Supplier Search -- PurchasePro's base of more than
300,000 businesses is a powerful tool for buyers. With e-Source
7.5, buyers can search for suppliers by product or by white pages
or yellow pages listings, sourcing suppliers that can bid for
their business and ultimately identifying the most qualified
supplier at the best available price.
e-Source 7.5 also provides buyers with enhanced software tools. These include automatic resolution of tied bids, email customization, consecutive opening and closing of auction events and reusable qualification requests that make sourcing easier for PurchasePro's expanding client base.
-- Auto Tie Resolve -- Buyers can extend an auction in the event
that two bidders place a bid for the same amount within the last
five minutes of an auction. Auto tie resolve deters suppliers
from waiting until the final minutes of an auction to submit a
bid in an attempt to "steal" the auction, and assures that all
suppliers have an equal chance to win a buyer's business.
-- Consecutive Open and Close -- Provides buyers with consecutive
open/close technology, assuring that a new auction does not begin
until the first one has closed, and enabling buyers to stagger
auctions throughout the day to maximize efficiency.
-- E-Mail Customization -- Customizable e-mail and communication
tools within the e-Source application enable buyers to
conveniently communicate with suppliers throughout the auction
event.
-- Reusable Supplier Qualification Requests -- Buyers can retrieve,
modify and reuse supplier qualification requests at any time,
saving time and assuring consistency in the supplier
qualification process.
The new release of e-Source also provides buyers with several management tools enabling senior managers to establish rules that allow subordinates to grant or revoke supplier status to a bidder and monitor RFQ responses throughout the procurement process. e-Source also charts the buyers' savings, versus historical costs, and the sincerity price, or the rate of savings that are necessary to justify switching suppliers, in real-time, throughout the auction process.
"When all is said and done, our strategic sourcing process provides buyers with the process and bottom line savings they are demanding. Our strategic sourcing platform is just one step in that process," said Benyo.
About PurchasePro
PurchasePro(r), www.purchasepro.com, is a B2B e-commerce leader with the stated goal of providing software to enable enterprises of all sizes to gain universal access to the world's largest commerce network. The PurchasePro commerce network comprises more than 300,000 businesses, authorized to buy and sell, and powers hundreds of private-label marketplaces. PurchasePro provides the following B2B e-commerce solutions: e-Procurement for enterprise-wide procurement; e-Source for strategic sourcing, v-Distributor for online distributors; and e-MarketMaker for Internet market makers.
This news release may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to the ``Safe Harbor'' created by Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent only the views of certain members of management and are based on limited information available to us now, which is subject to change. We have no current plan to update these statements. Actual results may differ substantially from what we say today and no one should assume at a later date that the forward-looking statements provided herein are still valid. They speak only as of today. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, see the SEC filings of PurchasePro.com, Inc., including the section titled "Factors That May Affect Results" in its 10-K filing for the period ended December 31, 2000, and its 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2001, which are available from the company on request and on the Internet at the SEC's Website, www.sec.gov. Note: PurchasePro is a service mark of PurchasePro.com Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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