DANBURY, CT January 28, 2002 Industrial gases behemoth Praxair, which stays ahead of the e-commerce curve, has continued its initiative today with the opening of its private trading exchange. The company announced today the availability of Praxair Express exchange, its private Web site for use exclusively by customers who purchase cylinder gases and related equipment, consumables and other accessories. As the largest industrial gases company in North and South America, and 2000 sales of $5 billion, there should be plenty of trading to be had.
Praxair Express exchange is an all-inclusive order-management tool that features online registration, order entry via category inventory search tools or customized order templates, and access to Praxair's eCatalog containing more than 100,000 products. Fully integrated with the order-to-cash transaction system, customers are able to check online inventory stocks, order status and account/cylinder balances.
"Since commencing our e-commerce initiatives over two years ago, we have continuously added to our comprehensive set of e-business tools to meet the evolving needs and capabilities of our diverse customer base," said Wayne Yakich, president, Praxair Distribution, Inc., the company's North American packaged gases business. "Our goal has been to create a balance between access to rich information concerning our products and services and e-commerce transactional functionality. Customers are encouraged to deal with us through whatever channels are most convenient for them."
Central to Praxair's business-to-business integration strategy is its eCatalog, built and managed using Requisite Technology's eMerge(tm) content management system. The system is used to dynamically build and maintain the catalog from which Praxair's customers complete transactions. In addition, Praxair's customers can intuitively find and compare products using Requisite's patented BugsEye(tm) catalog and finding engine. The Praxair eCatalog is classified under the Requisite Unifying Structure (RUS(tm)), an open, global content standard built for end-user finding. Catalogs organized in RUS provide consistently categorized product and service information and allow Praxair to unify content with diverse product and service information from multiple suppliers.
