BANGALORE: The Almana group of Hospitals, one of the largest healthcare groups in the Middle East, has appointed Wipro 01markets has its procurement service provider. This is Wipro 01markets first overseas win and comes on the heels of expansion of operations into the Middle East market. The project is to implement the web tendering and rank reverse auction module solutions for Almana.

"We are delighted to partner a reliable and known name like Wipro 01markets as we venture out to streamline our procurement processes. The Almana group has always prided itself in our ability to be at cutting edge of technology when it comes to operational issues and we are happy to extend this to a key area like purchasing" said Dr Aisa Almana, Director, Almana Group of Hospitals. "The reason why we decided to go with Wipro 01markets was because they came across as people who knew this business inside out and were specialists in the procurement area. Their approach was what we expected of a consultant and their solutions were real value for money."

The Healthcare Giant presently buys all it's materials related to hospitals which includes Pharmaceutical Drugs, Medical equipment's via the traditional offline method. The total buying per annum for the entire group is approximately $ 2 million and the suppliers for these materials are spread across the globe. The Almana Group of Hospitals will now use the 01markets Web tendering solution to get the quotes from suppliers and if they further feel that there is a chance of negotiation then they will leverage the Online Reverse rank auction module to get the competitive bids.

"This we feel is a significant step for 01markets in its endeavor to emerge as global player in the procurement services arena. This is a good start for us and we will continue to build on this success and further scale up our efforts. The Middle East is a great potential market for our 'Solutions' business. This is mainly due to nature of businesses which are trade oriented rather than manufacturing based," said Mythily Ramesh, VP and Business Head, 01markets.

" We expect a significant part of our business to flow in from our Solutions business. The implementation of this project will be further proof of our commitment to move up the value chain by developing & deploying our own procurement solutions which will place us on par with other global players in this arena," said Pradeep Bahirwani, Head, Global Sales, 01markets.