Atlanta July 10, 2001 Clarus Corp. today announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions. The agreement calls for Clarus eProcurement, Fusion and View software to power Microsoft Great Plains eProcure.
The new offering, available fourth calendar quarter 2001, will offer a Web-based purchasing process for direct and indirect products and services, real-time purchase orders and order processing. eProcure will be integrated with Microsoft Great Plains eEnterprise, Solomon and Dynamics solutions to provide a seamless online procure-to-pay process.
We are dedicated to bringing the savings of eProcurement to companies of all sizes, said Steve Hornyak, executive vice president and chief strategy officer of Clarus. By teaming with Microsoft Great Plains, we can now enable a majority of companies to realize the same procurement advantages as the world's largest corporations without the costly investment in infrastructure and [information technology] resources.
eProcure can be configured to accommodate any organization's operating structure, allowing purchase orders to be automatically routed to the appropriate department based on price, category, job classification or any number of other qualifications. Implementation of eProcure will be available through the Microsoft Great Plains network of some 2,200 channel partners and can be deployed on-site or through certified application service providers (ASPs).
Traditional procurement processes are costly and inefficient as a result of bottlenecks, maverick spending, and time-consuming paper-based processes, said Lynne Stockstad, vice president of e-business at Microsoft Great Plains. By integrating Clarus' products into eProcure, we will be able to offer organizations a solution that can reduce costs by gaining control of the purchasing process while allowing access to a multitude of suppliers and enhancing productivity by defining purchasing standards.
Many independent analysts and experts have validated the approach of teaming with best-of-breed providers to target this market. David Hope-Ross of industry research firm Gartner Group has said, Indirect channels represent an indispensable asset for vendors of eProcurement applications. Nowhere is this more true than in the midmarket.
