BellSouth this week introduced its
new Internet supply management center for small businesses, dubbed
PurchaseWise.
The Web site is stocked with a complete line of office supplies, as well as
access to a suite of online supply management tools, including reporting
and analysis capabilities designed to manage their businesses’ purchasing.
John Shivanandan, BellSouth (BLS)
e-business senior director, said its online purchasing service is the first
of several small business initiatives.
“The BellSouth PurchaseWise service demonstrates how BellSouth enables its
customers to take advantage of the benefits of e-commerce,” Shivanandan
said. “BellSouth is committed to providing a full portfolio of e-business
services that work in tandem with our award winning Web access and Web
hosting capabilities.”
BellSouth’s purchasing program is powered by the Commerce One Inc., which enables
real-time interaction between buyers and suppliers and includes a simple
hosted procurement application.
Mark Hoffman, Commerce One (CMRC)
chairman and chief executive officer, said its alliance with BellSouth will open up a new market for business-to-business e-commerce.
“BellSouth’s PurchaseWise service is a great opportunity for us to bring
the benefits of Internet trading to small businesses in BellSouth’s
nine-state region,” Hoffman said.
BellSouth’s small business purchasing program is aligned with Boise Cascade Office Products Corp. and
home office online supplier NECX Direct
LLC. Boise and NECX offer BellSouth e-commerce members an inventory of
over 25,000 products to choose from. BellSouth plans to add additional
vendors this year.
David Goudge, Boise (BOP)
vice president of marketing, said its good to get in on the ground floor of
BellSouth’s e-commerce offering.
“We see it as a great opportunity to utilize leading edge business
practices to provide customers with the best possible prices and services,”
Goudge said.
Brian Marley, NECX vice president of operations, said teaming up with
BellSouth brings the power of online procurement to small businesses.
“To support business-to-business transactions, we are utilizing the power
of the Internet to provide small businesses with the industry’s most
comprehensive procurement catalog for computer hardware and software
products,” Marley said.
In March EarthLink Network Inc. introduced
its small business resource center as an online service for Internet sales,
marketing and communications opportunities. The service allows small
businesses to concentrate on commerce, rather than technology issues.
Incumbent local exchanges carriers, Internet service providers and
application services providers are morphing into online entities to tap
specific market segments. By unleashing small business initiatives,
communication services are setting up aggregate offerings that are designed
to lock-in customers to a new way of doing business with a single company.
Both EarthLink (ELNK)
and BellSouth are emerging from carrier-specific services to establish a
new business paradigm and shift how small businesses operate. The online
value propositions are replacing old business models with new communities
of vertical markets that are centered around a core of communications
technology services.
BellSouth is inaugurating its e-business venture with a free-membership
offer for small bus
iness customers that sign-up during its launch period.
Regularly a $100 membership, new BellSouth PurchaseWise members will get a
lifetime membership for free.
The new service targets BellSouth’s 1.2 million small business customers,
who generate revenue in excess of $1.3 trillion annually and procure more than
$200 billion in goods and services.
