North Carolina with Accenture’s Assistance to Add eProcurement to Award-Winning Portal
eProcurement Expected to Fund Portal into Future
Raleigh, N.C., February 15, 2001 – North Carolina today announced it had exercised an option in the state’s contract with Accenture to integrate Epylon’s eProcurement solution statewide into "NC @ Your Service" at no upfront cost to the state. With this move, North Carolina further solidifies its position as a leader in eGovernment by integrating eProcurement into an already award-winning portal that enables seamless delivery of services to citizens and businesses across state and local government agencies.
Under the contract option, North Carolina will employ a self-funding business model to cover eProcurement solution construction costs and future expenses associated with maintaining and updating the state’s portal. State suppliers will pay a nominal fee to use the network for greater access to state buyers and the ease of automated business transactions.
"This innovative enterprise e-procurement approach supports Governor Mike Easley’s commitment to one North Carolina and enables the state to get goods and services from a Web-based system," said Ron Hawley, North Carolina’s Chief Information Officer. "This brings a significant cost savings to our taxpayers through aggregated buying."
Under the contract, Accenture will configure and deploy the Epylon eProcurement solution using Ariba (R) Buyer (TM) 7.0. With this robust, scaleable, public sector solution, North Carolina agencies will gain electronic access to the Epylon Supplier Network. giving the state ease of access to an expanded supplier base for competitive pricing and product information, while aggregating its own purchasing to negotiate prices on the basis of economies of scale.
"We’re pleased North Carolina decided to exercise this option to bring eProcurement, a best practice used by the commercial sector and increasing numbers of governments, to North Carolina," said Rob Berton, a partner in Accenture’s Government practice. "More than that, North Carolina is blazing a trail for other governments seeking fiscally sound ways to introduce eGovernment."
North Carolina originally contracted with Accenture last June to build "NC @ Your Service," which went live six weeks later, giving citizens, businesses, state employees and others fast, simple access to state services and information, and a direct gateway to the Web. The Accenture team supporting this initiative also included Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YAHOO), a global Internet communications, commerce and media company, and BellSouth, a $25 billion communication services company headquartered in Atlanta.
Accenture’s Global Government practice helps governments worldwide transform themselves to leverage the Internet and leading edge technology to deliver better and more services to citizens, businesses and their own employees, while also reaping the efficiencies that these solutions offer. Others turning to Accenture to help them realize their eFutures, whether they are taking a holistic portal approach or working on a piece of their vision, include: Delaware, Massachusetts, New York City, Wyoming, Ireland’s Revenue Commission, Singapore, the Australian Tax Office, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Defense.
About Accenture
Accenture is a $10 billion global management and technology consulting organization. The firm is reinventing itself to become the market maker, architect and builder of the new economy, bringing innovations to improve the way the world works and lives. More than 70,000 people in 46 countries deliver a wide range of specialized capabilities and solutions to clients across all industries. Under its strategy, the firm is building a network of businesses to meet the full range of client needs -- consulting, technology, outsourcing, alliances and venture capital. Accenture’s home page is http://www.accenture.com.
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Barbara Hohbach
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