Covendis 6 Extends Services Procurement Automation (SPA) Solution Suite
Atlanta, Georgia, August 16, 2004 – Covendis Technologies today introduced Covendis 6© , the latest version of its best-in-class Services Procurement Automation (SPA) solution suite. Covendis 6 enables companies to significantly expand their ability to streamline and automate the entire purchase-to-pay process of a broad range of services – all from a single platform and user interface.
“Companies spend more than half of their purchasing dollars on services, and yet it remains the largest uncontrolled expense category,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Raymond Tsao. “But that services spend is typically fragmented by service type and geography. Getting control and visibility of services procurement requires a platform that is flexible enough to be configured and operated locally but integrated and managed globally. Covendis 6 further expands the ability for companies to streamline and automate the procurement of a myriad of services, spread over many geographies, from a single interface.”
Some of the most common, yet complex services procured today by companies are activities-based, i.e. service providers are asked to perform a series of tasks, each of which must be tracked, managed, and billed at different rates, which might be time-based, or volume-based. It is often not possible to know which activities will be completed ahead of time, as in the case of repair, installation, or light industrial services. For example, a PC installation technician might have a negotiated hourly rate, but might also have fixed rates to perform certain predefined tasks such as hard drive installations or software upgrades. A light industrial worker might receive specific hourly rates for operating certain types of equipment or machinery. Covendis 6 allows “universal” requisitions to be established with activities-based rates. As service providers record which activities were performed, the system automatically applies the correct rate for each activity on bills and invoices, greatly reducing errors and time-consuming reconciliation activities. This new functionality, dubbed ABX, can be broadly applied to many service categories, including repair, installation, light industrial, marketing, training, and others.
The Covendis 6 suite, which bundles the SMX, RFX, CRX, and now ABX modules, enables companies to manage time-based, volume-based, project-based, fixed-price, contingency, retained, milestone, and activity-based services from a single interface. Multiple geographies such as the Americas, Europe, and Asia are supported since the application is both single and double byte enabled.
As with its other products, flexibility remains the cornerstone of all Covendis applications, with the ability for companies to install Covendis 6 on their own servers or have Covendis 6 purchased on-demand, hosted at an application service provider (ASP). “Covendis remains unique in its ability to configure and deploy applications according to the exact business rules and requirements of our Global 2000 customers and partners,” said Raymond Tsao. “Our mission is to help companies buy services better, faster, and cheaper and we will continue to rely on innovation to achieve our goals. Look for our next release to build on our tradition of adding real functionality to address real services procurement challenges.”
About Covendis
Headquartered in Atlanta, Covendis Technologies (www.covendis.com) helps companies buy services better, faster, and cheaper. Covendis is the leading services procurement automation (SPA) solutions company. Global 2000 companies, managed service providers (MSPs), and online marketplaces use Covendis applications to gain visibility and control of services expenditures, which account for over half of every corporate purchasing dollar. Covendis customers reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, and have on-demand access to key performance indicators of their services procurement activities.