From paper to procurement effective catalogue creation and ...

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In this instance, interoperable catalogue content between the South Australian Qvalent catalogue,
smartbuy New South Wales catalogue, and the Cyberlynx Supplier Hub, provided the Bank with
a wider range of suppliers and product. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia was able to aquire
electronic catalogues from suppliers in the required format without having to undertake manual
manipulation.
There were benefits to both the Bank and suppliers in this process. Suppliers, for instance, were able to
place accurate and detailed product information before key decision makers and potential new buyers
while buyers were able to identify products with a greater level of accuracy, consistency and efficiency.
• Commander Australia, a supplier to the South Australian Government Department for
Administrative and Information Services (DAIS), previously managed its catalogue via a
spreadsheet emailed to buyers. Commander developed its online catalogue with the assistance
of Sensis. Once developed, this catalogue was successfully uploaded into the Westpac Qvalent
system, which is used by DAIS for their online purchasing. Buyers in DAIS were then able to
place purchase orders with Commander using the online catalogue content made available, via
Westpac’s B2Buy portal.
In this case the catalogue interoperability capabilities of Sensis and Westpac Qvalent enabled
Commander’s products to be available to Government buyers.
The trial demonstrated that DAIS buyers preferred to use the online catalogue rather than the old
spreadsheets, which simultaneously led to greater use of electronic rather than fax or telephone
orders. Commander also found that their orders were easier to manage and that there were benefits
in invoice payment times and fewer invoice errors.
• In South Australia, Aish Data and Design, a drafting and printing supplier also had their
catalogue developed with the assistance of Sensis. Their catalogue was then made available to
the Westpac Qvalent system for purchasing by the South Australian Government (DAIS). Aish
found the development of the catalogue was relatively simple and that it was easy to amend
prices and other changes. Aish has subsequently seen a reduction in telephone communications
with DAIS and increased accuracy of orders.
• In NSW, the Cyberlynx Supplier Hub was used to translate supplier catalogues that had been
exported from the NSW Government smartbuyTM Marketplace. The Cyberlynx Supplier Hub was
used to prove that suppliers, who created electronic catalogues for one environment, including
extensive product attributes and UNSPSC Codes, could take advantage of the Hub’s capabilities to
convert the catalogue into different formats that were suitable for use in other buyer purchasing
systems and Marketplaces..
The trial demonstrated that electronic catalogue interoperability could be achieved between
catalogue hosting providers which in turn, provided suppliers with the benefit of creating their own
catalogue content once for distribution across multiple catalogue based systems.
• The South Australian Government’s Westpac Qvalent system and New South Wales Government’s
smartbuy system, successfully trialled a “punch-out” process. Using the Open Catalogue
Interface (OCI), this enabled a user logged into smartbuy to “punch-out” to the Westpac
Qvalent catalogue, browse, search and select items for inclusion in a shopping cart. The user was