The European e-Business Report 2004 - Berlecon Research GmbH

The European E-Business Report 20042.2.3 Case studiesThis chapter features abstracts and key lessons learned from case studies which are presented inmore detail in the 2 nd Sector Impact Study from August 2004.SLOVNAFT (SLOVAKIA)BackgroundActivitiesSlovnaft is a refinery and petrochemical company based in Bratislava in the SlovakRepublic. Since its privatisation in 1992, the formerly state-run company hasaggressively focused on modernising and adopting Western European businesspractices. In 2002, the management decided to improve business processes byimplementing an Oracle e-business solution for e-procurement. The major objectiveswere to cut down procurement costs and reduce paperwork.From January 2002 to February 2003, Slovnaft upgraded its Global EnterpriseManufacturing Management information System (GEMMS). As a result, thepurchasing process became digitally integrated at a satisfactory level. Procurementcontrol was increased significantly and centralized from different systems to acentral one for the whole company. While small orders can thus be automaticallyprocessed, product orders which exceed a certain cost have to be purchased on thebasis of a tendering procedure. Slovnaft uses electronic auctions, including reverseones.To facilitate the ongoing search for new potential suppliers, Slovnaft integrated itsbusiness software applications with ChemUnity.com, the first European vertical B2Bmarketplace in the chemical industry. Slovnaft also uses the horizontal marketplaceTrade2B.com for electronic Requests for Quotations (eRFQ ) and for reverseauctions.Results • Company-wide integration of purchasing processes: The upgrade to the new e-Business Suite (by Oracle) contributed substantially to integrating a largenumber of formerly separated applications into one central online system for thewhole company.• Reduced direct procurement costs: electronic auctions have helped to reducecosts for purchasing supplies.• Reduced time for accomplishing tasks: Slovnaft estimates that the new systemsreduced the time for materials' balancing from two hours per day to 15 minutes,and for a calculation of the 10-days' production costs from 15 to 2.5 hours.• The new system substitutes former paper-based workflows and helped tostandardise and increase the transparency of the purchasing processes.SPECIALCHEM (FRANCE)BackgroundActivitiesSpecialChem, founded in April 2000, is a gateway to several portals on the Internetwhich offer a variety of information and support functions for users of chemicalproducts. While all online services delivered through the portals are provided forfree, the company uses its community as an asset to offer targeted marketing andsales support to its business clients from the chemical industry itself.SpecialChem's business model is based on two closely interrelated activities:community building via Internet portals, and the provision of electronic marketingservices on behalf of clients. The approach is interesting as the first of these twobusiness areas does not create any income for the company by itself, but providesthe "intelligence" necessary for the second.94