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Mercateo stages its second executive summit

New infrastructures are fundamentally changing procurement systems

On the evening of 11 November 2014, experts from the procurement segment came together at the sky lounge of Berlin’s “ewerk”. Over 50 executives, managers and strategic heads of purchasing from groups such as Deutsche Telekom, Vistaprint, Deutsche Lufthansa and RWE attended Mercateo’s 2nd Executive Summit to discuss innovative e-procurement strategies and new options for procurement structures.

The key question at “Feel the Future of Dynamic Procurement” – the 2nd Mercateo Executive Summit was this: how can companies harness new platform strategies and network models to access an almost unlimited range of products and services? The event looked ahead to strategic procurement issues, potential solutions with e-procurement innovation, and procurement structures of the future that will make dynamic 360-degree solutions for indirect procurement a reality.

Customers, potential customers and representatives of science and industry specialising in strategic process organisation for procurement were all invited to the exclusive event. Mercateo’s founder and director, Dr. Sebastian Wieser, gave an insight into strategic development at the company. “The time when Mercateo was seen solely as an online shop for business customers is long gone. For years now, Mercateo has been supplying innovative e-procurement solutions to optimise the entire procurement process. It is already possible to order not just standard items but also customised products and services such as business cards and brochures. We are also working on offering flights, seminars and hotels over our procurement platform in the near future. This will transform Mercateo into a key digital interface in the B2B segment that can handle all transactions with product and service providers.”

That this vision could soon become reality was also highlighted in the evening’s keynote speech. The mathematician, philosopher and former chief technology officer at IBM, Prof. Dr. Gunther Dueck, talked about “The cloud as super-integrator” and emphasised increasing networking on the Internet that he believes is now an established trend in the B2B segment. Ultimately, the focus has to be on creating infrastructures that are simple and absolutely reliable. Prof. Dueck believes that Mercateo is already going in this direction and is set to bring about fundamental changes to purchasing systems.

Deutsche Telekom AG has been a Mercateo Germany client since 2010. Henning Icken, the Procurement Processes and Systems project head at Deutsche Telekom AG, spoke about “ONE.Catalogue – Partners for success”. He outlined how his corporation has restructured its purchasing and will continue to optimise this area with the help of Mercateo. The partnership is aimed at standardising operational procurement processes at both a national and international level and providing a comprehensive one-stop shopping concept for users. This is to be achieved through in-depth integration into a new, standardised ERP structure for the group.

Launching partnerships with organisations such as Vistaprint, the world’s largest online printing shop, Mercateo took the first step towards a 360-degree solution for indirect procurement back in October. In his talk entitled “Custom Services via Mercateo – the Vistaprint Perspective”, the Vice President of Global Strategic Partnerships at Vistaprint B.V. Sanjay Lobo spoke about the benefits offered by the partnership with the procurement platform from the perspective of a global player, emphasising Mercateo’s unique range of services, strong growth and large customer base with high demand for customisable print products.

The second Mercateo Executive Summit followed on from the 2012 event. The summit is to be pursued as an event offering the leading figures on the buy and sell side, the consultancy sector and science a platform for sharing perspectives and prospects for business, specialist and technological trends and visions.