Redmond, WA November 6, 2001 Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement, an integrated technology solution that enables suppliers to connect to any customer's e-procurement system or marketplace.
"We have worked closely with a wide range of suppliers to understand the issues they face and ways they would like to optimize their businesses. Based on this feedback, we created a solution that provides functionality, end-to-end customer support and enterprise-level reliability at a cost that makes it feasible for any size supplier to implement," said Chris Atkinson, vice president of .NET Enterprise Solutions at Microsoft.
Early adopters of the Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement, like MarkMaster, a rubber stamp manufacturer in the United States, have already reported positive results. Before implementing the Microsoft's solution, MarkMaster was processing up to 6,000 paper orders a day. This method of processing was costing the company both time and money.
Kevin Govin, the chief operations officer of MarkMaster, said "Our new solution reduces the overhead and potential for errors caused by our old, paper-based order process by 90 percent and reduces our internal order entry staff requirements by 50 percent, which should reduce our overall customer service costs by more than 30 percent. The solution also gave us the ability to rapidly connect to a vast array of customers previously unavailable to us. We're expecting that this capability alone should increase our sales by over 35 percent."
The Microsoft Solution for Supplier Enablement is also designed to lower the cost of integration with existing technologies such as ERP, CRM and catalog management systems. In addition, the solution comes with architectural guidance and complete solution support to make implementation easier. MarkMaster and other early adopter customers implemented their complete solution in less than 45 days.
