Rockville, MD — May 19, 2003 — e-Sourcing solution provider B2eMarkets has agreed to purchase the technology assets of competitor Diligent Systems for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Diligent, formerly known as Webango, offered an e-sourcing solution but was also a contender in the contract management space with a well-regarded offering designed to help enterprises reduce contracting cycle times and ensure contract governance and compliance.
Orville Bailey, B2eMarkets' president and CEO, made no secret that his company had its eye on Diligent's contracting solution when it targeted the competitor for acquisition. "With the acquisition of Diligent's ... contract management product, B2eMarkets can now claim the first true end-to-end sourcing platform," Bailey said.
According to Bailey, B2eMarkets will immediately begin to offer a standalone version of the former Diligent product to be branded as B2eMarkets Contract Manager. B2eMarkets also will continue to provide the solution to former Diligent customers.
In addition, the provider will be working to integrate the contracts solution into the B2eMarkets Supply Management Solution Suite, a task that Bailey said would be made easier by the complementary nature of the two solutions, a shared component architecture and the fact that they had little redundant functionality.
Noting that B2eMarkets had hired "much of the intellectual capital that built the Diligent intellectual property in the form of key product development and product management talent," Bailey said the integration should be completed by the end of this year.
B2eMarkets also offers a solution called Program Manager, a Category/Strategy Process module, Negotiation Manager, an electronic request for information/quote (eRFX) module and a bid optimization module, as well as a new Performance Manager Supplier Scorecarding module.
Combining the contracts solution with the provider's existing offerings, Bailey said, would give customers a single system of record to tie category sourcing strategies to actual results.
Diligent, which enjoyed such marquee clients as Eastman Chemical and Cisco Systems but which had not publicly announced a new customer since mid-2002, was a likely candidate for acquisition. Industry analyst firm AMR Research had recently singled out Diligent's contracting solution as offering the "strongest contract management functionality in the e-sourcing pack."
