September 7, 2000

Marrakech Redefines Business-To-Business Commerce with the Marrakech Global Commerce Network

The Marrakech Global Commerce Network provides a complete, neutral, end-to-end procurement solution that removes the need for costly software applications, systems integration and support

7th September 2000, Dublin, Ireland…European business-to-business (B2B) company, Marrakech, is today launching the Marrakech Global Commerce Network (MGCN), an Internet-based trading utility that facilitates commercial transactions between member organisations. The MGCN is the world's first service that brings together buyers, suppliers, banks and other intermediaries and integrates their processes enabling them to complete end-to-end commercial transactions.

The MGCN radically reshapes how companies implement B2B services such as e-procurement by providing a set of commerce services via a global network that requires no up-front investment in software and systems integration. Marrakech allows organisations to integrate in a standard way to an advanced global infrastructure for commerce facilitation. This allows organisations to leverage proprietary purchasing and sales order entry systems and to integrate with trading partners and marketplaces through a single environment.

"New B2B technology has opened exciting opportunities for organisations to carry out business in a quicker and more efficient manner," commented Kelly Murphy, chief executive officer at Marrakech. "However commerce is based around carefully cultivated business relationships between buyers, suppliers and third parties such as banks. While the advent of new technologies provides ways to improve the processes around these relationships, how these relationships are created and maintained will not be drastically changed by B2B."

Murphy continues, "With the MGCN, we are re-writing the rules of B2B, taking the best B2B technologies, while respecting the core tenets of good business practice. We work in the new economy, but we don't expect members of our network to pay prohibitive software and integration prices. Instead, we are making it easy for companies to take advantage of online transactions immediately. We allow them to channel the investment that was previously channelled into software and integration services back into enhancing their core business."

The MGCN enables fast and efficient end-to-end e-procurement transactions, reducing administrative overhead, eliminating software integration costs and off-contract corporate spending. Marrakech provides a web-based e-procurement application, which is tightly integrated with the MGCN. The solution promises immediate and cost effective of e-procurement transactions - the lifeblood of the entire B2B promise.

"Citibank believes that the Marrakech Global Commerce Network offers a simple and effective solution to the challenges of doing business online. In particular, it represents the arrival of end to end e-procurement", commented Rajesh Mehta, Business Manager Cash and Trade Latin America at Citibank. "Citibank is delighted to partner with Marrakech in offering this innovative product to its customers in Latin America".

"The arrival of web-based procurement is the biggest advance yet in the B2B market," commented Robert McMurry, Global Purchasing Manager at IONA Technologies. "Internet-based procurement applications offer an easy to use system that is set up and configured very quickly. The resulting application provides a significant reduction in the administrative overhead involved in procurement transactions over traditional paper-based systems. We are currently working with Marrakech to implement an Internet-based procurement system on the MGCN. We believe it offers great potential for streamlining the entire process between the buyer and the supplier."

"The promise of B2B commerce is all about enabling organisations to conduct business more efficiently and effectively than ever before," according to Stephen Mackarel, Managing Director, the Carphone Warehouse. "The Marrakech Global Commerce Network provides us with the ability to not only work with The Carphone Warehouse customers across our 32 stores nation-wide, but now with customers online throughout the entire procurement process from requisition to shipment. The business transaction is faster and more efficient and we can work more closely with our corporate customers as a result."

"Marrakech enables companies to control the purchasing of goods and services via the Internet in a secure controlled and extremely user friendly manner. It also enables the client to control the internal budgets for each enabled purchaser and department and cuts down significantly on a number of associated costs involved in purchasing," according to Jim Leyden, managing director of Bizquip. "Bizquip are delighted to be able to offer this facility to clients and we feel strongly that it will ensure that there is less time wasted in doing business as it allows the purchaser take control whilst also saving resources and ultimately money."

"The advent of B2B commerce is promising exciting gains in productivity across all organizations," according to Harry Farrell, e-business manager at Compustore. "Taking and improving how companies carry our commercial transactions is very valuable. Coupling that functionality with ease of use, low barriers to entry and a short return on investment makes B2B a very compelling proposition. We are working with Marrakech to take advantage of these benefits. We aim to get the full benefits of B2B, working faster, better and more efficiently with our customers and partners as a result."

"While the nature of how business relationships are created and managed remains constant, the mechanics of the business transaction are changing," according to Joe Hurley at Memorex Telex. "The arrival of B2B technologies is presenting a new approach that streamlines the processes and makes the commerce transaction easier and more efficient. Marrakech is offering us both an infrastructure and the applications that enable us to use B2B commerce for working better and more profitably with our partners."

"We are focused on streamlining our business processes," commented Pedro Romero de Terreros of Grupo Dermet in Mexico. "The Marrakech Global Commerce Network provides us with the infrastructure to redefine how we work with our existing suppliers and enables us to do business with them faster and more effectively than before."

Marrakech currently employs over two hundred people in Dublin, London, Paris, Dallas, Mexico City and Singapore. Marrakech is funded by a number of private and institutional investors including MCM Ltd., Island Capital (Ireland), Crucible Corporation (Ireland), Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (US) and Doughty Hanson & Co (UK).

About the Marrakech Global Commerce Network
The Marrakech Global Commerce Network offers members four different services, namely, e-procurement, Business Intelligence, Billing and Settlement and Open Network Services. The combination of these four services produces the world's most complete B2B solution that enables end-to-end e-procurement from requisition to settlement, provides sophisticated analysis tools and integrates all members on an open platform.

About Marrakech
Marrakech is the global transaction company. The Marrakech Global Commerce Network is an Internet-based trading utility that facilitates commercial transactions between member organisations. It is the only commerce utility that integrates procurement and payment services into one single, neutral network for buyers, suppliers, banks, marketplaces and other intermediaries. Marrakech is a privately held company with offices in Dublin, London, Paris, Dallas, Mexico City and Singapore. Visit Marrakech at www.marrakech.com