Five iSOCO clients win prizes for innovation in Purchasing Management

The companies have been recognised by the Spanish Purchasing, Hiring and Provisioning Professionals Association (AERCE) thanks to the innovative nature, originality and added value of their technological solutions introduced by iSOCO in their Purchasing Management Divisions with the aim of improving overall productivity.

Barcelona, August 2011.- iSOCO, an international technology leader in the development of applications that contribute to positioning companies in the Networked Economy, has received recognition for its work through the prizes awarded to five of its clients for the innovative processes introduced into their purchasing departments.

Repsol YPF, in the Innovation category; Almirall, for the Best Use of Financial or Technological Tools; Grupo Leche Pascual, for their ex aequo strategy with Purchasing Management; Grupo Mahou-San Miguel, in the Training category; and Soler y Palau, in the Provider Integration in the Value Chain category, are the client companies of iSOCO that have won the prestigious Purchasing Diamonds awarded annually by AERCE.

The Purchasing Diamond Prizes, awarded within the framework of the 14th AERCE Conference, distinguish the best projects in Purchasing Management due to their innovation, originality and the added value that they provide for their companies.

iSOCO, which is renowned internationally as a provider of semantic technology and artificial intelligence and has one of the most comprehensive semantic engines in the world, Semanti-K, develops innovative solutions through its Sourcing Transformation (ST) business unit based on proprietary technology to help companies manage their change process and optimise their relationship with the demand market (supply).

Adding value, a common objective of the award-winning companies
With the aim of turning their Purchasing Divisions into strategic departments that add sustainable value to the organisation, the five companies receiving the awards all entrusted their technological solutions and personalised consultancy to iSOCO.

In this regard, the pharmaceutical multinational Almirall detected the need to reduce the resources allocated for daily administrative procedures in its Purchasing Department. To do so, in 2009 they introduced the iQuotes Suite® application, which enables them to negotiate and manage relationships with providers, coordinate offer and order management and receipt processes and invoice from a single technological platform.

“Our ongoing quest for efficiency helped us detect the fact that we were investing too much time in tasks that added little value to the company”, admits the Almirall purchasing manager, Alex Basso. “Two years after introducing the electronic management system, we have reduced the time used on administrative tasks and increased the transparency of our relationship with clients and providers. In addition, we can now devote more time to tasks like searching for more competitive prices, so we contribute to the ongoing improvement of the company”.

The multinational Repsol YPF also placed its trust in the iQuotes Suite®, using combinatorial auctions to efficiently manage their negotiation processes in a low-competition market like the raw materials one. More specifically, the iQuotes® combinatorial auction solution has benefited the company by reducing the negotiation process, increasing competition between providers and making it possible to manage a higher number of providers and offers, among other advantages.

iSOCO's award-winning clients agree on their evaluation of the positive impact of the professionalisation and transformation of Purchasing on improving their competitiveness thanks in part to the improvement of risk management in the supply markets.

Its iLAB R&D centre enables iSOCO to meet the challenges and needs of each client and to provide innovative solutions to the market on an ongoing basis. The innovation centre is the cornerstone that will enable the company to confidently undertake its ambitious international expansion project, which envisages its entry into 12 countries in the 2011-2014 period.

More information at: http://www.isoco.com/web/guest/branch-de-isoco

iSOCO is Spain's foremost ICT company with a clear commitment to internationalisation as a leading technology provider to help companies develop and position themselves in the Network Economy. It has its own R&D centre, iLAB, and it stands as an international leader in semantic technology and artificial intelligence. Its main differentiating factor resides in the combination of a range of services based on proprietary technology.

It was founded in 1999 as a spin-off of the CSIC (the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research) and has a clear global outlook and local presence in the main markets. It is the only Spanish company to appear in the WCM Marketshare2010 and the instigator of the Spanish LinkedData Association (AELID).

With blue-chip clients like Almirall, AstraZéneca, Bankinter, BT, Colt, Grupo Leche Pascual, La Caixa, Repsol YPF and Zurich, among others, iSOCO is internationally renowned and possesses one of the most comprehensive semantic engines in the world: Semanti-K ®

Elena Castells
Marketing & Communication
ecastells@isoco.com
Av. Torre Blanca, 57
Edificio ESADE CREAPOLIS, Oficina 3C 15
08172 Sant Cugat del Vallès, BCN
(t) +34 93 567 72 24
(m) +34 607 624 541

This release was published on openPR.