Czech Telecom Launches B2B Marketplace

Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC — Czech Telecom’s first business
transaction through its new B2B horizontal marketplace
CenTrade has come to fruition.

Czech B2B e-business will get a significant boost because the new system
is backed also by SAP, CommerceOne and Citibank, which supports its
credibility.

Czech Telecom declared its CenTrade system open for buyers
and sellers, though it plans to use it primarily for its internal
purposes.

“The majority of Czech Telecom’s purchases will be carried out
in this way. In the next month we will start to realize significant cost
saving thanks to process improvements, headcount reduction and more
transparent market,” commented Urs Kamber, executive vice president
of Czech Telecom.

“Today, CenTrade facilitated the first transaction on
the new platform for its pilot clients. We shall see a number of
transactions similar to the one which took place today. The number of
buyers and sellers, both large and small, will grow quickly as the
benefits are appealing for all parties trading on the marketplace.
Others will be carried out using an auction mechanism. Similar
transactions will also be performed at vertical marketplaces, based on
the CenTrade platform,” Mr. Bessel Kok, deputy chief executive officer of Czech Telecom,
added.

B2B is becoming increasingly attractive in the Czech Republic.
While household usage of Internet is not common, businesses are usually
online and willing to utilize the new tool. Among the first, local
startup B2B Centrum launched its marketplace for non-production MRO (maintenance,
repair and operating) products.

Simultaneously with the start of
CenTrade, another local company eMatrix announced its B2B marketplace
oriented on computers and IT products. All these efforts could probably
form the critical mass.

Czech Telecom is a local incumbent
telecommunication operator with dominant position in voice services and
with important market share in data transmissions and Internet access.
It also partly operates one of three Czech mobile phone networks through
its 51 per cent stake in GSM operator EuroTel.