1.0 SUMMARY

Kompass RFQ is an international B2B online marketplace. In some countries it is marketed used also under the name Kommarket. The Kompass RFQ is a dedicated service developed specifically for procurement departments. Via the 54,000 product  and service keywords available to search by, buyers can within seconds pinpoint potential suppliers worldwide and send them requests to quote. The system is powered by the global Kompass database of over 1.9 million companies in over 70 countries.

System is used by the Kompass group – the leading worldwide provider of privately collected business information that can be used for multiple purposes such as sales, marketing, procurement and research. Due to the organization of the Kompass franchise network it is able to provide locally collected data on over 70 countries worldwide.

System was implemented for KOMPASS International Neuenschwander SA.
We delivered 1st version in autumn 2004, 2nd version on September 2005, 3rd version integrated to the portal www.kompass.com in February 2006. We provide customer with ongoing support and continuous development of the system.

2.0 CHALLENGE
THE VISION OF THE SYSTEM WAS FOLLOWING:

“Kompass wants to build additional online services on the top of their unique B2B database. Kompass has one of the most comprehensive databases of information about companies worldwide. They built unique system of classification allowing finding the producer of any requested product quickly and effectively. This classification can help purchasers to find the right suppliers. It is necessary to build international multilingual web system, which will be provided to the Kompass franchises as ASP solution. System will run from 1 central location. In each country there will be representative called Local admin (usually from Kompass franchisee). Local admin will manage relation to clients and other country-related issues. “

Kompass required solution built on open source components.

ABOUT OUR CLIENT:

KOMPASS HAS SERVED BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY FOR 60 YEARS. IT ORIGINATED IN SWITZERLAND AND IS NOW PRESENT IN 70 COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE.

Kompass has developed its business through a franchise network.

In many countries it operates with internationally known firms such as: Bonnier in Scandinavia and Hungary, Reed Elsevier in the UK, the French and Italian telecom companies in France, Italy, Spain and the Benelux countries, and Coface/Veritas in the USA, Mexico, Chile and Canada, Coface/Intercredit in Poland...

The Kompass Group employs over 2500 people.

For more information visit  www.kompass.com

EEA communication solutions_online systems_integration_outsourcing

3.0 OUR SOLUTION

In cooperation with Kompass Czech Republic we collected requirements and specified the Architecture and Design of the system.  System may run in any language based on characters, supported by UTF-8 (Unicode).

Multilingual support consists of following items:

• User interface: User may select language of user interface from available languages

• Multilingual enquiries: User can create Enquiry (Request for quotation) in different languages allowing to communicate with each bidder in native language.

• Localization tool supporting localization of user interface to diff erent languages we implemented 3-tier JAVA system based on open-source components.

Kompass RFQ interface has been designed to satisfy the specific needs of sourcing and procurement departments. User can contact potential suppliers in a few easy steps:

Select required products

• Indicate source countries

• Enter additional enquiry details (quantities, deadline, specs. etc.) – in the languages according to the target country

• Select companies from the list of relevant producers provided by Kompass central database

• Send enquiry to the selected companies

• Monitor offers, organize auction if necessary System provides Kompass with powerful administration tools, and statistical reports that are automatically exported to other systems. System generates valuable marketing information for local publishers.

4.0 RESULTS

Kommarket system is now operated in 18 countries by local Kompass publishers and was translated into 15 languages including Japanese and Russian. System will be also localized to Arabic languages. More than 1000 professional users send enquiries regularly. For these companies the system is serving their critical needs.

We are working on the new version of the system with major improvements.

System is available as an integrated service of the portal www.kompass.com or directly on www.kommarket.com

System is hosted in Prague.

5.0 ABOUT US

WE FOCUS ON:

• Design, development and integration of online solutions

• System integration and IT consulting

• Telecommunication and real-time solutions

• Outsourcing (software development, consulting, integration)

Our biggest assets are an excellent development team led by professionals with more than 15 years of experience. The majority of our customers are system integrators, large software companies, financial institutions, utilities, wholesalers and military – from Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium and France. We participate also in IT research projects (Project PROLIX under the 6th Framework Programme).

Locations: Bratislava, Trencín, Liptovský Mikuláš, Košice, Praha (Czech republic)

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE:

Architecture:

• 3 tier Java 5 application

• JSP / Servlets

• Hibernate

• Application server: JBOSS

• OS: Linux - Gentoo distribution

• Database: PostgreSQL

• Client side: web browser

• Mail server: Postfix  flow measurements across, for example, balancing valves. The PFM 2050 includes valve characteristics for a number of different valve producers, models and sizes. All communication between the handheld device and valves, sensors, etc. is performed via a Bluetooth interface.

Valve Browser, a the desktop part of the PFM 2050 software kit, and contains information about a huge amount of fluid valves from different manufacturers. It is used for reference purposes, and shows the user the characteristics of the valve he/she is interested in.

Report Viewer, another desktop application from the PFM 2050 kit, stores information gathered from different water systems using wireless handheld devices. Apart from its central storage capability, it generates views and reports of data gathered.