When FreeMarkets introduced online bartering to the business world in the 1990s, the once tedious work of buying goods and services changed forever.
Then the fabulously successfully FreeMarkets was sold and it moved west as Ariba. Ironically, another company, founded in California in 2001, moved east to Pittsburgh during those years, gathering up many former FreeMarkets employees. That company is CombineNet, started by Carnegie Mellon’s Tuomas Sandholm, director of the Agent-Mediated Electronic Marketplaces Lab.
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Since then, CombineNet has grown to 70 employees with the help of a private equity investment last June. Located on the second floor of the Pitt-Ohio Express building in the Strip, the company has announced the hiring of another 10 people this year including engineers, sales and marketing positions, says Rich Wilson, president and COO. A major management announcement and a key client in Australia was also announced this week.
CombineNet is capitalizing on advanced sourcing technology that has overcome the initial limitations of the early sourcing enterprises that had revolutionized how businesses buy goods and services. The core product, Advanced Sourcing Application Platform (ASAP), offers “expressive bidding,” the ability to distill information from massive amounts of data to provide a better solution for buyers, explains Wilson. It’s a web-based way to optimize the entire spectrum of a deal–from freight and delivery costs to transit time–and provide a more robust product.
“This is the cutting edge of the future of corporations worldwide,” says Wilson. “Small companies here in Pennsylvania can reach across the globe and get the materials they need in China. Companies are using our software to strike a proper balance between cost and other business objectives.”
The company, which counts many Fortune 500 companies among its clients, is now turning to small and mid-size companies that couldn’t previously afford to take advantage of online sourcing.
CombineNet’s latest client, Viterra Australia, a provider of premium ingredients to global food manufacturing companies, is the first customer in Australia. Viterra will help to establish the firm’s worldwide reputation, says Wilson. CombineNet has offices and industry-leading customers in Europe as well.
Source: Rich Wilson, CombineNet
Writer: Deb Smit
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