MUMBAI: US based business-to-business (B2B) software company Commerce One Inc
on Thursday launched its electronic marketplace services in India through a
partnership with Indian firm Gate2biz.
Commerce One senior vice-president of worldwide sales, Mark Biestman, said
Gate2biz.net would offer Indian companies the opportunity to tap global trading
opportunities, with access to its network of 157 other e-marketplaces. "Our
model for global distribution comes through global trading web partners and we
have signed up with Gate2biz as our partner in India," he told Reuters.
Biestman said he did not expect Indian companies to jump blindly onto the B2B
space though he believed the market was "primed and poised for
growth."
"I think in India, just like in the rest of the world, they want to see
proven, concrete examples of money that has been made or saved as a result of
using this kind of model and then they will get involved," he said.
Some Indian companies such as Hindalco Industries , Tata International and
DCM Shriram Consolidated had already conducted transactions on Gate2biz, he
said.
Commerce One's Indian distribution unit chief operating officer, Vivek
Agarwal, said Gate2biz was targeting revenues of $3-5 million in the first year
of operations. Despite the multitude of failed B2B exchanges in the past year,
Biestman sounded bullish about the prospects of B2B commerce going forward.
Commerce One last month reported a loss for the first quarter though it had
year-on-year revenue growth of 386 per cent while rival Ariba Inc reported a
wider second quarter loss.
"We believe that the B2B space has really broadened beyond electronic
procurement to a category called marketplace - which is essentially setting up
an infrastructure where buyers, suppliers and value-added service providers can
communicate," Biestman said.
"Commerce One had learnt from its experiences in the past two years that
its business model has to be very inclusive and very open," he said.
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.