Supplier and Demand

Dallas  April 30, 2001  Ascendant Solutions, a provider of software and services for B2B e-marketplaces, has announced the launch of its SELLERBridge Web-hosted application for suppliers. The application was created in response to what analysts have identified as the obstacles facing buyers and sellers in electronic marketplaces today: enablement and content management.

According to Pierre Mitchell in his article "The Problem with Supplier Enablement  A Supplier's View," published in the April 2001 issue of AMR Outlook, "Suppliers need help, and they are not getting it from the technology flea market. If I were a supplier I'd want ... a hosted storefront with my own Web site and the ability to personalize it for the needs of multiple business units and commerce methods, such as SKU [stock keeping unit]-based order management, configuration, and quoting. Various flavors of 'punch-out' and industry-specific standards must be supported out of the box. Available-to-promise support would also be nice."

SELLERBridge aims to offer suppliers the ability to increase sales channels and revenues through automated catalogs and digital storefronts via e-marketplaces and e-procurement systems such as Ariba and Commerce One. Additionally, Ascendant Solutions' SELLERBridge can help drive revenues through hosted online supplier storefronts that have catalogs. Trading partners can view high-resolution, multimedia images of off-the-shelf products, as well as complex goods and services.

SELLERBridge is the first module of Ascendant Solutions' portfolio of integrated solutions, MARKETBridges. MARKETBridges represents the natural product progression from Ascendant Solutions' Omnigy Platform to serve the B2B marketplace.  This hosted supplier-enablement portal and application suite supports catalog creation and catalog/content management for digital markets, allowing sellers to build and syndicate multiple buyer-specific views from a single master catalog to buyers across electronic marketplaces. With SELLERBridge suppliers can update the master catalog as often as needed and differentiate their offerings through dynamic digital storefronts.

"In today's changing B2B marketplace, suppliers are not armed with a complete Web-enabled hosted solution to solve their supplier enablement needs," said David Bowe, president and CEO of Ascendant Solutions. He believes the SELLERBridge solution will meet buyers' demand for tailored electronic catalogs with customized pricing that interface with their choice of e-procurement platforms.