Seoul, Korea and Walldorf, Germany July 31, 2002 Samsung Electronics Corp. (SEC) and SAP AG said they have successfully implemented a private exchange based on MarketSet, the joint solution from SAP and Commerce One Inc. Samsung's private exchange, called Worldwide Trading Network (WTN), is a single global system that links all Samsung R/3 and legacy systems using one common platform.
To date, Samsung has deployed the Worldwide Trading Network across nine production, sales and logistics subsidiaries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. The company plans to complete its efforts to create a digital business platform by rolling out the system to all of its 59 global subsidiaries by the end of this year.
According to Samsung, the Worldwide Trading Network enables inter-subsidiary trading processes with real-time reporting and analysis for business performance tracking. It allows Samsung to achieve cost savings by reducing inventory through integration between the sales, procurement and accounting processes of various subsidiaries around the globe.
"With the WTN, we are now able to integrate all the ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems in our overseas subsidiaries into a single system based on the Internet platform and move closer to becoming an organization that can respond to e-business needs," said Kwang Tae Kim, vice president, corporate public relations group, SEC. "We plan to evolve on the system to use it as the basic infrastructure for collaboration with our customers."
In addition, Samsung said its private exchange solution increases efficiencies by reducing the time for information flow between the sales and production subsidiaries from four days to four seconds. Real-time reporting and analysis allows Samsung to extend visibility across its entire supply chain.
The vision of the Worldwide Trading Network is to extend integration to all internal offices, sales offices, external trading partners and even customers using a hosted platform and the Internet.
"It is great to see that Samsung is achieving tangible results from the Commerce One/SAP MarketSet solution. We believe Samsung's emergence as an e-business leader further demonstrates the continued need for B2B e-commerce solutions that support key industries," said Mark Hoffman, chairman and CEO of Commerce One. "We continue to work with SAP to find new ways to deliver solutions that help our customers cut time and costs out of their trading processes."
Samsung said the WTN represents a significant building block for Samsung's future growth by enabling new breeds of collaboration between Samsung and its partners and by allowing easy integration of existing and new applications to further streamline processes. A multi-disciplinary team of consultants from Samsung Data Systems, SAP and Commerce One supported the Samsung-led effort.
