Event Summary
As
a $17 billion company, privately held PricewaterhouseCoopers has tremendous
leverage when it goes to the marketplace to make purchases. Now the company
is offering to share that leverage by creating a purchasing consortium. Its
new e.conomy marketplace will offer members the ability to purchase products,
services, travel and software. It will also cover best practices, contract negotiation,
and other content areas. The marketplace was launched in the United States and
will expand to Canada, Europe and countries in Asia and the Pacific early next
year.
Market
Impact
Like
the similar announcement by TD Bank of Canada (See TEC News Analysis article:
"Bank
is First Mover in Canadian E-Commerce" December 27th, 1999), PricewaterhouseCoopers
is taking the position that anyone can create a marketplace. While the largest
financial consulting firm is hardly "anybody," what we see here is the beginning
of a flood of similar ventures from companies of all kinds, including similar
consulting companies, banks, other large companies with purchasing leverage,
and potentially anyone else. Look for a lot of confusion at the beginning of
2000, with some serious shakeouts near the end.
User
Recommendations
A user in the United States wishing to enter into E-procurement currently has
at least two options. PricewaterhouseCoopers is one option, while joining a
marketplace run by an E-procurement software vendor is another. The user has
to consider many factors when making a final choice, including:
-
Current
buyer and vendor members of the marketplace
-
Capabilities of the underlying procurement software
-
Ease
of integration with existing back-end, legacy or ERP systems
-
Ease
of integration with other marketplaces
-
Likely
financial stability and viability of the marketplace
-
Experience of other users, including ease of use and speed of delivery
These
factors must be determined for every candidate marketplace or E-procurement
company.