City of Columbus Signs Agreement with Vinimaya

Procurement marketplace extends Microsoft Dynamics AX solution, provides more efficient purchasing and facilitates shared services

CincinnatiOct. 15, 2013Vinimaya, Inc., a provider of procurement marketplace solutions and catalog management services, announced the signing of a three-year agreement with the city of Columbus, Ohio to implement its vMarketPlace solution. One of the fastest growing major metropolitan areas in the Midwest, the city of Columbus has earned numerous awards, including No. 2 in the U.S. for job creation and No. 3 for best city in the nation for tech jobs, and placement in the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year.

The city’s purchasing office selected Vinimaya as the preferred solution to immediately augment the functionality of its current environment and build upon the capabilities of the new Microsoft Dynamics AX financial management system currently in deployment. The city plans to aggregate supplier catalog content from city contracts, externally managing the content in a single online marketplace and offering access to select contracts for surrounding local governments. The Vinimaya solution is expected to provide benefits to the city, including reducing the cost of goods purchased, lowering the administrative cost associated with the purchasing process, and improving access to minority and small business suppliers.

“The vMarketPlace solution met most of our needs—including reducing cost and administrative effort, and presenting a common user interface to allow simple comparison shopping,” said Rick Miller, a procurement administrative officer for the city. “In particular, I’m excited about having the ability to collaborate with our surrounding communities to bring overall benefit to the region.”

Vinimaya vMarketPlace provides a consumer-like shopping experience, starting with a simple search box for natural keyword search. Vinimaya’s patented federated search capabilities provide dynamic access to all sourced items under contract from multiple sources—online suppliers, local catalogs and inventory items. The results are aggregated and delivered instantaneously to the shopper, including those with mobile devices. Through this system, the city also may share catalog content and pricing with other public-sector entities to support shared services initiatives at the state and local level. 

Vinimaya vMarketPlace supports virtually any enterprise resource planning (ERP) or e-procurement platform, and eliminates the delays, technical challenges and cost of managing numerous locally hosted supplier catalogs or supplier punch-outs.

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