January 2001

"Enormous interest" is reported by Wesupply in the Web-based outsourced supply chain solution it announced last spring. Pilot users TI Automotive Systems and Lear Corporation have been joined by IMI Norgren and Cott Beverage, and more major users are expected to be announced within weeks.

Initial funding for the UK-based business was provided privately, but the company has now gained what is described as "multi-million pound" backing from the LMS investment fund, and has a staff strength of about 40. Managing director John Luscombe predicts profitability by the end of this year.

The company aims to offer B2B customers full supply-chain integration with their suppliers, yet without interfering with existing systems. It does this by gathering data from their systems, converting it to the required format, and passing it between trading partners in near-real time.

Its product is a fully hosted solution, run on an ASP (application service provider) basis and delivered via the Internet. Users access it via standard Web browsers, although various degrees of integration are possible with existing interfaces. Principal customers pay £150 per month for each supplier on the system, while their suppliers in turn pay £150 per month each.

Luscombe emphasises that it is "not just an EDI translation system." It processes the information ­ turning it from data into knowledge, as he puts it. The accent is on aspects such as providing proactive alerts to support management intervention in automated tasks.

Luscombe acknowledges that many target businesses will already be using EDI, but maintains that his solution is much less expensive or complex to implement, and also avoids the inexactitudes in data translation that EDI can cause. It does this by fleshing out the data with contextual detail, and by providing comparative and analytical services.

Wesupply is targeting businesses with substantial inbound supply chains involving relatively fixed supplier populations. Its initial market focus reflected Luscombe's background in automotive industry IT, although it is now also attracting interest from sectors such as healthcare, electronics and retail, which it is dealing with through partnerships with consultancies.

In addition to targeting European users, Wesupply has now opened an office at Perth in western Australia to serve the Asia-Pacific region ­ a market offering "fantastic opportunities", according to Luscombe. He says the company is also expanding faster than originally expected in North America ­ mainly on the basis of referrals by existing users.