It is good to hear that Basware has formally joined the Hub Alliance, increasing the member companies to six, which includes founding members Asite, Causeway Technologies and Burns e-Commerce from the UK in addition to more recent members CertiPost from Belgium and Liaison Technologies form the USA. During my assignment with Causeway Technologies, I undertook the obligation to bring Accountis on-board. Whilst there is significant interest from Accountis in principle, nothing positive has come out of it to date – which I must declare as a personal disappointment given my close links to Accountis’ Founder Rhys Jones - as well as knowing the most of their Executive Team.

It is my belief that an organisation such as Hub Alliance needs to open up to non EIPP hub operators – the key role should be market education in addition to promoting interoperability between hubs. At present, they see themselves as a closed unit of EIPP hubs. I actually think a vital opportunity has been lost. But I am glad to see the growth of the Members, in this case by one.

There are also competing organisations recently been formed in Europe with the same intentions in mind. Does this mean that there need to be a Super Alliance connecting all the Hub Alliances? It’s just crazy – why not join the Hub Alliance? This will certainly improve resource utilisation as well as market awareness.

References:

• BasWare acquires my neighbour Digital Vision Technologies
• Could Hub Alliance be bigger than OB10 and Ariba Supplier Networks?
• Hub alliance to banks? rescue
• Hub Alliance – My first meeting

According to David Ferdinando, Regional Director – London South of United Data:

“The decision to sponsor the Accountancy Age awards was a natural choice. Over the next three to four years, the impact of ‘open networks’ will have a significant effect on the way every finance department in this country operates. United Data will be at the forefront of that change with ExDox ?, Europe’s first free to join Open Document Network, which becomes available in November to coincide with the Awards.”

Well done David with striking such an important strategic partnership – getting accountants and financial directors on your side is vital to any e-invoicing campaign. And the amount of publicity this will generate should result in a decent ROI. How come no one else has thought of this before? This potential partnership never entered my mind when ebdex was developing and seeking early users for ebdex Document Exchange. However, I had number of discussions with another body in the accountancy community on a deal which did not involve up front costs for ebdex – rather on revenue share basis – which I am a great believer in. But that particular organisation had less influence in the UK market than Accountancy Age.

Yet another launch date for United Data – so familiar story with startups. ebdex was nearly 8 months behind when I pulled the plug – cutting the losses. With edocr, it was taking too long – five months into product development. So I convinced the team to release Alpha version. Without a doubt it was the right decision. You cannot really compare edocr with ExDox – but ExDox can be compared directly with ebdex, as roots for both organisations came from Morahan International, which is no longer in existence. I am hoping that ExDox already has a decent number of trial customers. Such a business require customers before a formal launch – early user feedback is so vital to a successful launch.

United Data also claims:

“ExDox? is the UK’s first free to join, totally open document network, with a free national supplier migration program. ExDox? allows all organisations, regardless of what type of accounts package they use, to send and receive invoices electronically. There is no capital outlay and there are no complicated contracts. Members of the network pay for what they use, which is 25p to send or receive a document. ExDox ?, for the first time, allows SMEs to connect to their larger customers and to trade amongst themselves with no capital outlay or the need for expensive setup and maintenance costs. Customers who have already invested in EDI can join the ExDox ?network using a connector.”

Perhaps it’s the first – but few other companies have claimed the same in the past. It’s a great concept to not have an up front charge, as you are eliminating a significant barrier for adaption. But someone needs to absorb the operating costs as there are significant customer awareness and trading partner enablement costs need to be accounted for. As United Data comes across many different accounting packages, will they start passing development costs to customers? If not, they will continue to have to write off costs on an on-going basis. It makes commercial sense to offer Sage Line 100 connector free, but makes less commercial sense to develop and offer a free connector for a legacy or not so well known/used accountancy system.

It would be a great day when I can report the first case study here – when that happens – I will take my hat off to Mark Morahan – for being persistence with his energy to take a slice of the e-invoicing market – this time concentrating on UK rather than the world – taking one small step at a time.

References:

• United Data Ltd # 1 – Mark Morahan is back!

Mashup* Manchester will kick off on 18th October 2007 at Sun Microsystems in Sale, South Manchester with a high level discussion and networking evening themed ‘Web 2.0′. We want to bring together all the innovators, investors, enterprises and media organisations involved in Web 2.0 in the North under the theme of Mashup* Manchester. This event is jointly organised by ebdex (Manchester) and Mashup (Simon Grice).

Speakers

Speaker 1: David Terrar of Blognation and D Squared C

David heads up D Squared C, a consulting firm which advises on the application of web 2.0 and social media tools to business, as well as providing web based solutions for accounting, collaboration, content and web publishing. In addition he is the editor for blognation Enterprise, reporting on enterprise and SME technology innovations and start-ups, as well as related people and events in the UK and Europe.

David has been in the software business for over 20 years. Following an Applied Physics degree at UCL, he spent 9 years with IBM. He then performed director and senior manager roles at Cyberaid, CSI, IMI/Brook Street Computers, Interactive, DataWorks, Indus, Science Systems and CODA. David writes the Business Two Zero blog and is a member of the Enterprise Irregulars and Social Media Collective blogging groups.

Speaker 2: Simon Grice of etribes, mashup and testcard.tv

Simon is the Founder & Executive Chairman of Midentity Limited which owns and operates the etribes service. Simon started my career in 1991 when he worked at CERN in Geneva with members of the team who built the first web servers and browsers. Since then he has founded/co-founded a number of successful businesses including PersonalMail (Europe’s first web based emailed company), Netpoll, etribes and more recently Midentity.

Speaker 3 – Lee Strafford of Plus.Net fame and Project Sahara

According to Ian Spence, Analyst, Robert W. Baird: “As CEO at PlusNet, Lee created a unique business in the broadband space – profitable! Under Lee?s stewardship, the company grew from nothing to a ?100m company before it was sold to BT last year. In doing so, Lee has many friends in the City. Lee understood from the start that making money in broadband was about low cost of operation and high customer satisfaction and is was these guiding principles never changed regardless of market ups and downs. Lee?s qualities as a business leader are extremely rare. He has the ability to not only have a vision but also understands the busines process required yo make that vision a reality. Furthermore, he sticks to his vision whilst others in the market may lose confidence – ultimately he is proven right.” 

Lee will speak about the technology platform for Project Sahara

Moderator

Manoj has now turn around ebdex to become a niche consultancy specialising in EIPP (e-invoicing) and supply chain finance, providing corporate and vendor advisory and vendor analysis services in addition to business advisory for startups and early stage businesses. Manoj has also teamed up with Rhys Jones and founders of Ixis to bring edocr, which can be best described as “Making business document interactivity a reality”. Manoj also runs OpenCoffee Manchester, a relaxed version of NW StartUp 2.0 events on every 4th Tuesday of the month, and blogs at http://www.manojranaweera.com.

Manoj is very much interested in building a portfolio of startups. He is interested in projects where he could add value through leadership, business planning and execution, market entry and channel development.

Case Studies

Case Study 1: NetVibes

Netvibes pioneered the personalized startpage, an alternative to traditional Web portals. With millions of users in more than 150 countries, Netvibes lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, widgets, and everything else they enjoy on the Web. Founded in 2005 by Tariq Krim, Netvibes has offices in Paris, London and San Francisco.

Case study 2: edocr

edocr allows business documents such as press releases, white papers, case studies, product updates, brochures, analyst reports, etc (any .doc and .pdf) to be interacted within the business community. The business-social interaction allows publishing companies to obtain valuable information on readership whilst readers have an easier way to interact with publishers as well as easily find documents of interest.

edocr can be used in many ways, e.g. simply as a way to embed documents on to your blog or to run a marketing campaign on a product launch. The value additions will become obvious as the traffic improves as well as the number of uploaded documents and readership increase.

Case Study 3: meecard

Meecard is a snippet of youness online, giving people an instant introduction to who you are. It pulls together your multiple virtual identities, repackages them into a highly customisable ‘card’, and then helps you publish it on the Web, in email and on business cards. Meecard also features powerful people search, helping potentially interesting contacts or clients to discover you. On the cusp of its first release, Meecard has already won ‘Most Innovative New App’ at Barcamp, a popular grassroots event.

Programme

Programme:

6:15pm Doors open & networking
7:15pm Speeches & Case Studies
8:15pm Panel Discussion
9:00pm Networking

Venue

Sun Microsystems

City Gate
Cross Street
Sale
M33 7JF (click here for map)

Cost:

£25 – Please get in touch with Manoj Ranaweera if your circumstances warrant a discount.

Registration

Please visit MashupEvents to register.

Paul Robinson, a keen OpenCoffee Manchester supporter has finally launched his new project, Vagueware, which is an idea bank. For what’s worth, I submitted one of my ideas to Vagueware today. In addition to my idea, there are three ideas from Paul to kick start the process, these being:

• Bounty contribution on Vagueware
• Allow people to collaborate on ideas within Vagueware
• Make the code running Vagueware.com available

All ideas are public domain. All of us come up with ideas everyday. How often do we do anything about them? Here is the place to dump your ideas. Let the community comment and rank your ideas. Some of them might be interested in pursuing them with you. Others might provide the scrutiny you need. Some could help you find partners. The potentials are endless. Why not start dumping your ideas today?

Wish you all the best Paul – May your idea to come up with Vagueware be the king of all ideas!

Recently, I have been spending significant amount of time collaborating with David Kinnear, President of DDC HRO. David was one of those rare individuals who understood the business potential of edocr immediately. Since then his brain has been on overdrive with ideas pouring in every few minutes. These have now extended to ebdex and beyond. In this process, I also came to know Global Sourcing Council (GSC) he has founded with number of other prominent leaders on sourcing and outsourcing. 

GSC provides a forum and opportunity for productive dialogue to take place between key sourcing countries such as Philippines, India and China and key private sector participants such as DDC HRO.

According to Founding member and Board member, Christine Bullen, a Senior Lecturer at Stevens Institute of Technology?s Howe School of Technology Management:

?The GSC will play a key role in furthering business interests by promoting an open environment for the many participants in the sourcing world: country trade representatives, service providers and private enterprise from different countries. It provides opportunities for professional networking and business development in the context of the social impact of sourcing. The GSC also addresses timely issues important to any company involved in global business operations and to any country where sourcing is taking place.?

With further collaboration, Manchester Business School has been identified as a potential partner representing the UK and perhaps Europe. Discussions are at early stage, but I am doing what I can to help this initiative. There are significant opportunities for everyone who is interested in getting involved.

The inaugural meeting will be held on 25th October 2007 at New York City. Related documents can be access through here:

Here is a list of key personnel involved:

• Shawn Banerji – Russell Reynolds Associates, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Michael Biber, CEO – Biber Inc, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Christine Bullen, Professor – Stevens Institute, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Judy Arteche-Carr, VP, Vendor & Service Provider Program – SIM
• David Kinnear, President – DDC HRO, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Wanda Lopuch, CEO –  MDA Associates, Inc, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Karen Morris, CIO –  AIG / AIU, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Josephine Romero, Trade Consul, Philippines, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Aditya Saharia , Professor – Fordham University, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• John Stacey, CEO – Satellnet, Inc, Founder Global Sourcing Council
• Zachary Weinberger, MBA, J.D. – IBIS Advisors, Founder Global Sourcing Council

 According to David:

“Ghandi once said ? ?Be the change you wish to see in the world.? As we move forward into an era of new, developing markets, so we seek business and public sector leadership that can take the opportunity to ?make a difference? in the community ? around the world. This is a key goal for the GSC.?

I fully embrace the intentions behind GSC, and David’s enthusiasm and drive in outsourcing initiatives. In addition to my personal assistance, edocr will also form part of the global discussion.  With this in mind, edocr team is exploring the possibility of providing greater interactivity within edocr through special interest groups.

I wish David and his team a very successfull kick of meeting on the 25th.

To any business, customer loyalty is paramount for continuing growth and success, as it is now well proven that biggest revenue contributer and even more importantly greater profits on average comes from existing customers than new customers. Given the instant action demand culture created by the Internet, with increasing ease at which multiple teams from many time zones can function extremely well together through services such as Yuuguu, why has it that service providers such as Emanio has taken so long to offer 24×7 coverage?

What is also compelling is that XML has not killed EDI as once expected. Whilst it is no brainer for new startups to offer XML based technologies with ability to support EDI messages, the EDI incumbents are finding new ways to combat the potential threat. As the e-invoicing and data exchange products become more and more mainstream with increasing customer awareness leading to sector growth, EDI and data capture solutions will continue to grow on the back of the sector growth. As I said before, more and more companies are going for step changes rather than big bang approach, combining solutions that offer quick methods to address corporate pains – how to reduce paper – how to increase operational efficiency whilst achieving cost benefits at the same time. So the competitor to EDI, XML or any other similar technology in true sense still remains to be paper – PAPER IS KING.

Emanio has a section on EDI, which I recommend anyone new to EDI to get their teeth into. Emanio customer service web site is much more in tune with recent design layouts than the corporate site. Perhaps putting my point into action – treat existing customers well!

Emanio’s blog is bit of a joke as last post is dated 22 March 07 – seems like something they put together in a hurry without full understanding of how to leverage blogging for greater leads generation. Perhaps I need an account to access more relevant blog posts. Site needs testing as there are significant CSS/layout problems. This is my first look at Emanio, which has been limited to few minutes. The key reason I covered Emanio is that their PR approached ebdex, and I was curious as it was the first time I came across the company. And I was designing the template for ebdexNewsCast, so it was a good opportunity to get the news release published on edocr. They do not seem to have operations in the UK.

Let me know if anyone is interested in knowing more about Emanio.

Technorati Tags: emanio, paper is king, edocr, eipp, edi, e-invoicing, ebdexNewsCast

I simplified some of the vendor services offered by ebdex, especially with respect to analysis. Here is a snap shot from the Vendor Analysis Services from ebdex web site:

• ebdexPedia – Full Profile on Vendor Database
• ebdexNewsCast ? Publishing press releases/announcements on to edocr platform, managed by ebdex on your behalf
• ebdexTalk – Vendor Analysis with output as blog articles
• ebdexTalkLoud – Coverage of press releases/announcements through bog articles and/or Market Briefs
• ebdexAnalysis – Vendor Analysis with output as Vendor Analyst Reports
• ebdexSponsor – Logo on blog as sponsor
• ebdexSponsorMany – Sponsorship for Reports that cover more than one Vendor
• ebdexBrief – EIPP or SCP Market Brief ? 1/2day
• ebdexBriefFull – EIPP or SCF Market Brief ? Full day

Above services are further split into silver, gold and platinum packages as shown in following guideline document:

As you can see, edocr provides a powerful yet simplistic way to interact with documents.

Pictures make a massive difference to a simplistic web site such as ebdex. See the impact it has made. There are lot more pictures to be uploaded with key messages over the weeks and months to come. All these gems are from none other than Gary Turner, ex-CEO of pegasus. Gary’s picture collection can be accessed through flickr.

Thank you Gary - keep up your hobby – it’s turning out to be a great collection.

Perhaps worth checking out this story, if you are looking for an acquisition target. The person to contact is Richard Samuels of Avondale. Please contact Richard direct for further information.

Key points:

• National top quartile data scanning bureau.
• Experienced senior management retainable.
• Process in excess of 2 million documents monthly.
• Turnover of circa £1.1M and a gross profit of 58%.
• 40 multifunctional, experienced staff.
• Exceptional modern plant facility enabling high productivity.
• Operates from 6000 sq ft high capacity plant.
• Premises offer?s close proximity to national motorway network.

It seems that the Bureau collects documents daily and once processed, images are stored on disc or micro film/fiche with database of documents. They also operates on-line document storage facility. It is not clear whether they provide any specific services for Purchase-to-Payment (P2P) and Supply-to-Cash (S2C) documents including invoices. If you are looking for a low tech scanning bureau, perhaps this might be the answer. Let me know if anyone wishes to pursue this opportunity.

Just caught up with Marcus Hughes, Head of Financial Supply Chain Solutions, Abbey UK Corporate Banking on his way from SIBOS 07 to learn that he has now taken up the strategic role of “Head of Global Trade, Santander Group“. Marcus joined “Abbey UK Corporate Banking” about 6 months ago, and is credited for launching Financial Supply Chain Solution together with OB10. Marcus speaks fluent Spanish and has a deep knowledge of payments and supply chain finance. His new role is expected to keep him in Spain and Latin America most of the time.

Marcus is a keen promoter of web based solutions and will pursue a strategy of bringing web based solutions to traditional paper based trade products, as part of the paper to electronic migration, especially with respect to convergence of cash and trade.

Wish you all the best Marcus in your new role, and let’s continue our discussions.

References:

• Abbey?s Supplier Payments #2 – The A Team
• Abbey?s Supplier Payments # 1 – Process Unravelled!
• OB10 # 6 – Abbey UK Partners with OB10 and becomes a customer at the same time!