Commerce One picks up first European contract

Commerce One, a leading supplier of automated procurement software in the US, has signed up Lufthansa as its first European customer. The German airline will start using Commerce One's MarketSite and BuySite products in October.

Chuck Donchess, Commerce One's VP of marketing, said: "We couldn't cover indirect services until now, because they require such a developed intranet and there are untrained people involved." MarketSite uses a secure Web site to link clients to the electronic order forms of their suppliers, where they can compare prices, make purchases and track orders.

A Stanford University model shows that automated procurement can cut the cost of a purchase order from $69 to $7. The Commerce One software costs around $2m plus the costs of integrating it into an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system.

"The site is configured to match a client's terms of contract," said Donchess. "It means that employees in the field are always protected by contract when they make spontaneous purchases."