e-Procurement Case Study

Background

One of the most significant developments to revolutionise global purchasing over the last few years is e-Procurement.

Large organisations throughout the world are investing millions in creating sophisticated purchasing systems that can provide immediate, measurable savings.

The Challenge

While various proprietary systems deliver great benefits to the user, few have the capability to deal with the complexities of a service purchase such as translation.

It was therefore necessary for thebigword to develop a punch out or round trip solution for e-Procurement users.

The Solution

Developed by thebigword's technical team, the eProcurement component of LanguageDirector™ Enterprise is a 'punch out' system that can be integrated into any eProcurement environment.

With 'punch out' a user can connect to thebigword from their own eProcurement web interface. Thus extending the capabilities of your own eProcurement system.

Once connected to LanguageDirector™ Enterprise , a client can take advantage of the expert language management that they provide.

No two translation jobs are ever the same. It is not like purchasing copier paper where the price can be easily determined from an online catalogue - each 'request for quote' has to go through a costing process.

Translation Memory is a database of all previously translated phrases. Used extensively within the industry, it can dramatically reduce the cost of translation.

When a document requiring translation is sent for a quote, a Translation Memory profile determines exactly what proportion of the sentences within the text have already been translated, what is a near match and what is completely new.

All this can result in cost savings of up to 70% by avoiding duplication. LanguageDirector™ Enterprise can be used right across an organisation and gives valuable financial management information on a company's translation procurement.

The Benefits

The user benefits in two ways:

• The user benefits in two ways. Firstly, there are the efficiencies of an eProcurement system that keeps the purchase process simple, tracks on enterprise-wide spending and ensures consistency of sign-off and authorisation procedures.
• Secondly, the client knows that they can rely on the service level agreements provided by thebigword to give them an efficient and costeffective translation service.

All documents that enter the system are transported in a completely secure environment using 128-bit SSL encryption, so there is never any fear of important documents falling into the wrong hands.

thebigword language management team selects the best translator for the job from their database of over 4,500 highly qualified translation specialists. They constantly monitor the whole process to maintain the highest level of project handling.

The Figures

Oracle iProcurement is one example of a system that successfully uses an 'punch out' interface to link with LanguageDirector™ Enterprise.

Within the customised portal the user can request a quote, place an order, monitor activity and submit or collect a file.

There is also a free machine translation facility where a client can get the gist of a foreign document to see if it requires professional human translation.