SiteHost provided the solution for e-invoice delivery
service Open Business Exchange
- Business description Open Business Exchange is
a business-to-business electronic invoice delivery service
- Business challenge To implement a robust,
reliable and scalable infrastructure, with round-the-clock managed
support and security for the site
- Solution To offer a secure and reliable online
service that is compatible with all invoice processing applications
and will enable businesses to streamline their accounts
- Services Fully managed and integrated web
hosting solution from SiteHost
If there is one area where the quest for a paperless office has
failed, it is in the accounts department of companies across the
globe.
In Europe and America companies generate 15 billion paper
invoices every year, costing the medium to large corporations
thousands of dollars each month. This needn’t be the case. As with
many other business functions, the Internet provides organisations
with the opportunity to both streamline the invoicing process and
cut their overheads.
Open Business Exchange has launched an electronic invoicing
service (OB10OB10) that will do just this for suppliers and buyers,
whatever their size or accounting package. The IT infrastructure
supporting the online service is crucial to OBE’s success, which is
where Computacenter’s integration and implementation expertise came
into play. In addition to procuring and advising on the
infrastructure, Computacenter also has overall responsibility for
the web environment through its comprehensive managed service,
SiteHost.
Open Business Exchange (OBE) is the brainchild of four former
executives from Visa International. With more than 70 years’ of
experience in the finance sector between them, it’s not surprising
that they spotted a great Internet business opportunity.
Chris Lowrie, Operations Director for OBE, explains why they
singled out the invoicing process for the web treatment: “The
accounts payable function of a business is very expensive due to
its labour intensive nature. The manual handling of invoices
delivers no added value to a company, is very time-consuming,
repetitive and is error-prone. By making the entire process
electronic, we can save companies up to 90% on their invoice
processing costs.”
The OB10 service, OB10, went live in August and the first
company to sign up is pharmaceutical giant Fisher Scientific. Other
major businesses are currently piloting the service.
Electronic invoicing is itself nothing new, as any EDI proponent
will tell you, but the web-enabled, automated process offered by
OBE has much wider appeal in the business community. As well as
creating system integration files, the HTML invoices created by
OB10OB10 have also been recognised by customs and excise as
legitimate for VAT purposes - the first many-to-many system to
achieve this in the UK.
How it works
OB10 is accessed through a standard web browser and invoices can
be uploaded and downloaded via the portal by both suppliers and
buyers. By transferring invoices directly to each other via the
Internet, companies will cut out various stages of the manual
process - printing, postage, data entry and manual checks are all
combined into one simple operation.
The invoices are processed by a unique and very complex data
translation engine that is compatible with all invoice processing
applications, ranging from large ERP platforms such as SAP and
PeopleSoft, to mid-range systems such as Sun Accounting, Sage and
Pegasus.
Despite a complex back-end, OB10OB10 is very easy for a company
to implement, as they just need a web browser and a digital
certificate that authenticates the user. Smaller traders that do
not operate any standard software package can still use the service
by simply typing up their invoices online using an OBE web
interface.
All systems go
Development work on OB10OB10 began in earnest in May 2000, when
the four founding partners secured the funding they needed to make
their dream a reality. A fundamental task was procuring, designing
and installing the infrastructure that would support the
service.
With the average blue-chip company handling 100,000 invoices a
year, OBE needed a very large, reliable datacentre. Hosting the web
site with an external specialist proved to be the most
cost-effective and efficient way to attain the performance and
resilience levels required.
Chris explains: “As a startup, we couldn’t hope to build the
kind of datacentre required to support our service. We needed
round-the-clock support, disaster recovery options, dedicated
Internet connectivity and some heavy-duty IT equipment. By
outsourcing the management of our web infrastructure, we can meet
all these requirements without incurring massive overheads.”
After analysing the different players in the market, OBE chose
Computacenter’s SiteHost service. As a result Computacenter is now
responsible for managing and maintaining OBE’s web infrastructure,
which is hosted at a dedicated Internet centre.
“Computacenter offered the best support and help for setting up
our infrastructure. The technical team were very knowledgeable and
the whole approach was flexible to our needs,” comments Chris.
The SiteHost service includes optimised Internet connectivity,
device backup, load balancing and systems monitoring, which ensure
OBE’s infrastructure is delivering optimum performance to its
customers - night and day.
Sun’s the one
The infrastructure, which is capable of processing and storing
many millions of invoices, is based on Sun technology, includinging
two E4500 servers, two AA1000 servers, and an E220 server.
The decision to deploy Sun was an easy one, as Chris explains:
“I’ve used Sun equipment for seven years and can’t recall a bad
crash. Using Sun servers and the Solaris operating system was an
obvious choice for us. Solaris is more evolved than other Unix
platforms and it is easy to manage, plus it works very well with an
Oracle database, which is what we are using. Sun hardware is also
very scalable, robust and easy to integrate with other devices and
applications.”
Although the hardware decision was clear-cut, OBE needed expert
help with the integration and security of the OB10OB10 system,
which is where Computacenter’s extensive infrastructure skills
proved invaluable.
“Computacenter showed us the best way to integrate the system
and were particularly knowledgeable about implementing security
solutions and helped draw up our security policy,” continues
Chris. “We needed to ensure that the data stored on the site was
protected from any intrusion attempts and that our customers were
confident in the security of theof the OB10OB10
proposition.”
Confidence is key
It wasn’t just Computacenter’s knowledge of security solutions
that impressed Chris: “Computacenter handled all the installation
and set-up and the project management of this process was
fantastic. They had the expertise to take their own decisions on
implementation and integration, freeing us to do other development
work.
“It would take 10 to 15 people to do the work Computacenter does
for us and I’m very confident outsourcing this responsibility to
them,” he continues. “The staff are technically competent and very
responsive if we have any queries. The team were instrumental in
the co-ordination of the project and truly delivered an end-to-end
service. I would definitely work with them again.”
This article was part of Computer Weekly's managed services
business channel, sponsored by Computacenter