Research Triangle Park, NC February 19, 2003 SciQuest, a provider of e-procurement solutions to the life sciences, research and higher education markets, today launched a supplier enablement solution intended to help organizations bring a critical mass of suppliers online.
The solution provider said its SelectSite Spend Director is a multi-commodity supplier enablement, catalog management and contract compliance solution for research-intensive organizations seeking to enhance their procurement processes to increase on-contract spending and improve enterprise productivity.
Built on the hosted SelectSite technology platform, Spend Director is designed to help organizations rapidly integrate a critical mass of both hosted and punch-out supplier catalogs into a single application for end users. Using Spend Director, administrators can configure the buying experience to promote on-contract spending, while maintaining end user autonomy, according to SciQuest.
Spend Director components include supplier enablement services and such content offerings as hosted catalogs and punch-out integrations, intended to minimize implementation time and costs as well as maintenance expenses. Catalog configuration capabilities allow purchasing departments to shape the context in which buyers make purchasing decisions. The solution integrates with various procurement systems.
Purchasing executives can use the spend reporting capabilities to identify new contract opportunities and to audit contract compliance, while commodity-specific search, selection and requisition tools are intended to drive user adoption and increase contract compliance, according to SciQuest.
"To maximize return on their e-procurement investment, organizations are redefining supplier enablement strategies to include not only which suppliers they activate, but also the context in which users interact with those suppliers and ultimately make their purchasing decisions," said Jamie Duke, vice president of products, operations and strategy at SciQuest. "Spend Director bridges the gap between purchasing departments and end users, making them allies in managing enterprise spend."
SelectSite Spend Director is currently available.
SciQuest recently reported a net loss of $8.8 million for the fourth quarter on revenues of $1.7 million, but the company has also announced a string of new customers, including the University of Edinburgh, one of the top five research universities in the United Kingdom, as well as the University of Arizona and the University of Michigan.
