Aregon, regional e-business solutions provider and digital marketplace, in alliance with the global consulting firm PwC Consulting has completed a pilot e-procurement implementation at the Arab Banking Corporation (ABC) head office in Bahrain. The e-procurement system recently went live with 100 users currently activated across the bank’s departments.
The implementation at ABC combines two of Aregon’s e-procurement offerings: AregonProcure, an enterprise-wide e-procurement solution, and the Buyers Club, Aregon’s full-fledged e-procurement service which aggregates the demand of multiple buyers to secure discounted pricing on purchases of non-core material. ABC has outsourced its purchases of office supplies to the Buyers Club.
“The Aregon/PwC Consulting alliance has provided us with e-business services that are proving very effective in managing and streamlining our purchasing processes. We intend to aggressively deploy and maintain this e-procurement solution across the global organization,” said Sael Alwaary, senior vice president and head of Global Information Technology at ABC.
Employees at ABC can now purchase goods online in the office supplies, pre-printed material and Information Technology (IT) equipment (desktop PCs, PC servers, notebooks, printers and accessories) categories. The system allows ABC to streamline and automate its purchasing process, have greater visibility of company purchases, maximize compliance against preferred supplier contracts and drive savings and efficiencies to its bottom line more quickly.
This was the third e-procurement project that the Aregon/PwC Consulting alliance worked on in 2002, coming on the heels of implementations for both Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) and Saudi Oger, the two regional construction giants. Aregon will continue to work with ABC on expanding the e-procurement initiative to cover other ABC units around the world.
Headquartered in Bahrain, Arab Banking Corporation BSC (ABC) was established 1980 and is the largest Arab financial Institution (in terms of assets, $28.9 billion). ABC is predominantly a wholesale bank with retail banking activities in the Arab World. Services provided by ABC Group include: Corporate Banking, Treasury, Islamic Banking, Retail Banking, Investment Banking, and Private Banking.
ABC's strategy of diversified growth led to the development of its widespread network (the ABC Group) of branches, representative offices, subsidiaries and affiliates in over thirty countries around the world, including most principal international financial centers (London, Paris, New York, Singapore, Milan, Frankfurt, Tunis, Sao Paulo, Hong Kong, Cairo, Amman, Madrid, etc.).
Founded by Aramex and Citibank, Aregon is an e-business solutions provider and business-to-business digital marketplace serving the Middle East, North Africa and Indian Subcontinent. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
