Chemunity - Pragmatic Procurement of Chemicals

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	ChemUnity refocuses on procurement software ChemUnity announced last week the introduction of its procurement suite. The suite, which includes five modules, marks the evolution of the dotcom company into a software seller. The procurement suite builds on the sourcing portal that ChemUnity introduced in July 2001, adding inventory monitoring, fulfilment, integration and business intelligence reports. ChemUnity claims the software automates and optimises all routine procurement processes such as replenishment call-offs and new-contract triggers, leaving purchase managers to concentrate on 'critical tasks' such as contract negotiations and offer selection. This, says Herman Rijks, ChemUnity's chief executive officer, respects the fact that most buyers have established relationships with vendors they like to do business with, and merely automates the process. The system allows companies to request and submit bids, negotiate prices and award contracts up to the point of issuing a purchase order. This means that the service is not competing with companies like Elemica. 'We consider ourselves to complement what they do. They handle all the information after a purchase order has been taken. We handle everything up to this point.' Rijks adds that the company has no plans to go into this area in the future. The complete solution is custom-built, and price depends on the amount of work done on the five modules: 'but this is not five times as expensive', explains Rijks. For the past three months ChemUnity has been doing pilot testing for the whole solution with two customers. Netherlands-based ChemUnity started in 1999 as a commodity marketplace. Despite building up over 600 users, the company abandoned the model in favour of selling software online last year. 'We had problems with the marketplace, we found that people started using it to find new suppliers, but then they would go off and do business off-line with them next time. We were not making enough money from it,' said Rijks. 'But we didn't want to give up on the idea of using the Internet to make users' lives easier, a lot of people have forgotten that this is what e-business is all about.' Source: European Chemical News, 4-11 February 2002