B2B Suppliers - B2B Portal News | MarketPlace | Directory | Products | Trade

In the near future, possibly in 5-10 years, the size of China's economy could exceed the size of the US economy if the robust rate of growth continues. Japan's economy is one of the largest in the world and South-Korea's economy is growing fast and also India's economy. With that being said it is very clear the Asian economies play an important role on the global markets today and that role could become even more important in the near future.

Having access to the best financial information on the Asian financial markets is necessary for any global trader whether he is trading on the foreign exchange market, stock market or on the commodity market.

Financeasia.com is a Web service that provides news and commentary on Asian business deals and the Asian financial market with content categorized by country and topics. RSS feeds are available in various categories.

Sources : www.b2btoday.com

Five-year agreement brings leading-edge marketplace to
Aliant's subsidiaries and suppliers

Saint John/Montreal, September, 6, 2000 -BCE Emergis and Ariba
today announced they have signed a five-year, multi-million
dollar agreement with Aliant Inc. to provide a fully-managed
business-to-business corporate marketplace and e-procurement
solution. The agreement will extend to all Aliant's subsidiaries
and approximately 400 of their major suppliers across North
America.

Aliant, which includes NBTel, IslandTel, Maritime Telegraph and
Telephone Company (MTT), and NewTel, will be the first large
corporation in Atlantic Canada to benefit from the BCE Emergis
e-procurement solution, a fully-managed Internet-based
marketplace featuring Ariba's (R) B2B Commerce platform.

The integrated solution will create economies of scale and supply
chain efficiencies for Aliant, its subsidiaries and suppliers.
Aliant expects to improve the management of its $800 million
(Cdn) in annual purchases which include indirect and direct
goods.

"This initiative will streamline our procurement process and make
it more cost effective, as spending is directed through the B2B
e-procurement solution," said Perry Jarvis, Director of
Procurement for Aliant. "By giving our employees and suppliers a
common e-commerce environment, we can leverage our appreciable
buying power to create improved economies of scale."

"Through this agreement, we are extending our e-commerce
expertise into Atlantic Canada and to Aliant's large group of
national suppliers," said Christian Trudeau, Executive Vice
President and Chief Operating Officer, BCE Emergis. "Furthermore,
it expands on our existing relationship with the Aliant companies
that already market our services in their existing portfolio of
e-business solutions."

"This agreement with Aliant is further proof of the strength and
success of Ariba's alliance with BCE Emergis," said Kevin Dwyer,
Vice President of Ariba Canada. "Ariba and BCE Emergis are
committed to helping Aliant receive a fast and significant return
on their investment and to improve their overall bottom line,
through B2B eCommerce efficiencies."

The Emergis enabled marketplace, which embeds the Ariba B2B
Commerce Platform, helps companies realize greater economies of
scale and commerce process efficiencies by providing an open
trading environment - via the internet - rich in services such as
payment, business document exchange, order management and
security services. With the Emergis B2B e-Commerce infrastructure
and the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform, Aliant employees can
electronically approve and aggregate corporate purchasing from
each employee's desktop and direct spending to preferred
suppliers, that can also benefit from the rich service
environment of the Emergis enabled marketplace.

The Aliant group of advanced technology companies (TSE:AIT) and
its staff of 10,000 professionals deliver full service,
integrated solutions through its core lines of business: wireline
and wireless telecommunications, information technology, remote
communications services, and internet-based business solutions.
From its base in Canada, Aliant serves North American and
international customers. For more information, visit Aliant at
www.aliant.ca.

Ariba, Inc. is the leading business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce
platform and network services provider. Through the Ariba B2B
Commerce platform - an open, end-to-end infrastructure of
interoperable software solutions and hosted Web-based commerce
services -- the company enables efficient on-line trade,
integration and collaboration between B2B marketplaces, buyers,
suppliers and commerce service providers. The global reach and
best-of-breed functionality of the Ariba B2B Commerce platform
creates Internet-driven economies of scale and process
efficiencies for leading companies around the world. More
information can be found at www.ariba.com.

BCE Emergis delivers network-centric e-commerce services that
significantly improve customer processes through secure B2B
exchanges. Combining e-commerce, e-payment and security services,
BCE Emergis offers clients in the healthcare, financial services,
telecommunications and transportation industries a full suite of
core and vertical-specific services that are the essential
building blocks and infrastructure required for e-commerce. BCE
Emergis is one of the top e-commerce providers in North America
and its shares are included in the TSE 100 Composite Index. For
more information, please refer to www.emergis.com.

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements
that reflect the current views and/or expectations of BCE Emergis
with respect to its performance, business and future events. Such
statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and
assumptions. Actual results and events may vary significantly.

Source  :  bce.ca

Mutually beneficial collaboration is only possible when different players have access to full information, which is never possible with a competitor in a pure, competitive market. Therefore, the obvious question is whether the supplier would attempt to take advantage of the relationship with the buyer.

The answer is "no," because pivotal to this relationship is "full information." The buyer still has access to prices from other suppliers, and it's in the buyer's best interest for the supplier to stay away from a monopolistic approach to pricing. Sustaining a good relationship allows the buyer to prosper from its superior quality and ability to deliver.

Buyers can have any number of such partnerships, with "partners" either in the same competitive space or mutually exclusive in the products and services they provide.

To make such a system work, the buyer's system should be able to rate:

• Product quality.

• Mean Time to Failure of the product.

• Ability to deliver the product on time.

• Ability to maintain competitive price compared with other suppliers of similar scale and size.

This allows buyers to keep suppliers honest, and for suppliers to keep existing business by maintaining a high rating on buyers' systems. And if two or more suppliers in the same space maintain a consistently high "buyer rating," buyers can determine the supplier for a particular product by awarding the contract on a predetermined basis, or in a specific order.

Any supplier failing to maintain the high rating can be either penalized by being skipped over for a contract or being completely removed from the system for a certain time period. Along with the obvious cost benefits, this system includes all the value adds such as superior quality, reliable delivery and competitive pricing.

The timelessness of Nash's theory requires that the underlying system stand the test of time. In the B2B world, both longevity and adaptability of the technology are important. In terms of longevity, the technology should not have to be changed often. From the adaptability perspective, a company needs to interact with different systems. An XML-based solution would be ideal.

When done right the first time, this B2B solution can be implemented in about 90 days or less with just a couple of people -- and B2B's promise of enhancing specialized buying is just around the corner.

Source : houston.bizjournals.com

Business to business, or B2B, e-commerce swept through the business world with huge potential. But the ride continues to be bumpy. In today's economy, many companies are re-evaluating and re-strategizing the scope and scale of their B2B business models.

Online exchanges and reverse auction sites, which were considered to be the keys to success, failed to deliver. Yet there are solutions, especially from the perspective of specialized buying, that can make B2B really pay off.

Buying cheapest doesn't work well

First, the big problems. In reverse auctions, the lowest price wins. These are unfavorable for suppliers that have to whittle away profit margins to win bids. In fact, suppliers are better off not competing on an cost-only basis that eliminates the "value add" they bring to the entire supply chain process.

With no real way to differentiate their products, these exchanges did a huge disservice to the suppliers. Buyers, who looked like the overall winners, were quick to discover that buying from the cheapest supplier actually added more problems. Since the most important part of the supply process is the actual delivery of the product, failure to deliver results in mismanaged expectations and missed deadlines.

But the theory by Nobel laureate John Nash -- made famous in "A Beautiful Mind" -- lets companies interact with each other to maximize both individual payoffs and overall outcome. The problem, though, is that competing suppliers try to undercut each other on price, which weakens suppliers in general since each wants to reach their own best outcome.

Although economists dismiss this sort of behavior as "irrational," it is more the norm than the exception. Suppliers cannot work together on a long-term basis because it is hard to predict what a competing supplier is planning to do. The short-term payoff from a competing supplier's ability to find and "cut a better deal" is enough of a reason. That makes it virtually imperative that they team up with a buyer, and vice versa.

Source : houston.bizjournals.com

ACCOUNTANTS in Worcestershire are being asked to ditch their pinstriped stereotype to get more businesses using new technology.

The National B2B Centre, the e-business centre for excellence for the West Midlands, believes that accountancy firms hold the key to getting more firms to adopt e-business practices that could earn more than £2bn for the regional economy.

The centre is hosting a seminar in Birmingham on Tuesday, July 15 with online accountant groups AccountingWEB and PracticeWeb to help accountants to assist small companies on how to do business in the internet age.

The training seminar will equip accountants with new skills such as how to build effective websites and will explain the mysteries of search engine optimisation to help accountants build sites that attract traffic and new business.

The web experts will also explain how accountants can protect themselves from online intruders and to ensure they comply with all the red tape associated with e-business.

The web skills workshop for accountants is the first step in the National B2B Centre’s strategy to convene a special interest group for accountants in the region that will help them to pass their e-business expertise on to their clients.

Martin King-Turner, managing director of the National B2B Centre, said: “Accountants probably hold more sway with their clients than any other sector.

“So if we can develop their skills in this field and ensure they know all of the benefits involved with using e-business – whether it’s using an online system to share data or driving more traffic to the website using search engine optimisation – they can then provide leadership to their clients.”

The event is taking place at the Burlington hotel in central Birmingham for more information contact Rachel Sparks at AccountingWEB on 0117 915 3344.

wedish business communication company Intellecta AB (OMX Stockholm: ICTA B) said on Friday (11 July) that it has agreed to acquire Hil-Anders Advertising Agency AB (Hilanders).

The purchase consideration comprises a fixed cash part of SEK20m and additional payments based on future performance.

in connection with the acquisition the sellers have also agreed to acquire Intellecta shares for a total of SEK2.4m on the OMX Nordic Exchanges.

Hilanders is Sweden's leading B2B agency and is expected to achieve revenue of SEK80m in 2008.

The acquisition will strengthen Intellecta's offering especially within market communication.

Intellecta, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, provides agency and information logistics services to companies in Sweden and Denmark. The company has some 450 employees and reported revenue of SEK471m in 2007.

One British pound (GBP) is worth approximately 11.86 Swedish kronor (SEK).