94 percent of sourcing scenarios analyzed in less than 10 seconds - providing the best possible business solutions in the least amount of time

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CombineNet, Inc., the leading provider of best-in-class e-sourcing technology, today announced that in a recent review of 50,000 supplier sourcing scenarios optimized this year in the CombineNet ASAP® product, 94 percent were solved in less than 10 seconds.  CombineNet is also being awarded its 17th patent in the U.S. for its core technologies.

CombineNet ASAP is a SaaS-based solution featuring Expressive Bidding® that allows users to collect and analyze supplier bids for sourcing events of any size or level of complexity. The product provides a robust scenario builder feature for very quickly processing and comparing bid data against a variety of user-defined sourcing scenarios. The speed of CombineNet ASAP allows customers to be exceedingly creative in running a variety of scenarios that lead to better business solutions.

"One of the key business benefits we receive by using CombineNet's e-sourcing technology is its analytics power and speed," said Ben Cubitt, Senior Vice President of Consulting and Strategic Services at Transplace, which leverages CombineNet ASAP to optimize transportation procurement decisions for customers. "CombineNet ASAP's Expressive Bidding allows Transplace to collect more data from suppliers, such as conditional offers, packaged deals, capacity, terms, and other non-price factors, and we can easily incorporate all of that data into our planning. Without CombineNet's product, that type of analysis would not be reasonable to pursue due to the amount of data to dissect, review, and manage."

The speed of CombineNet ASAP's e-sourcing analytics helps procurement teams in the following ways:

• Allows for very rapid modeling and analysis of sourcing scenarios that carry greater complexities, by flexibly incorporating highly configurable business rules.
• Allows for total-value analyses that move beyond just price factors.
• Supports larger-scale data sets, making it easy for sourcing teams to quickly analyze numerous scenarios that can include tens of thousands of items, hundreds to thousands of suppliers, and hundreds to thousands of bid attributes.
• Allows for easy comparison of multiple scenarios side-by-side, thereby facilitating enhanced collaboration with spend stakeholders.
• Saves time: productivity improvements reported by clients range from 15-50 percent in analysis time savings.

"Without the industry-leading speed developed by CombineNet, purchasing teams would not have the time to explore the range of scenarios within their business rules. CombineNet ASAP helps reduce the time spent on the mechanics of sourcing, allowing more time to be spent on strategic decision making and satisfying business requirements,"  said Rich Wilson, President and Chief Operating Officer, CombineNet. "I commend our R&D and product development teams for improving our speed to compute year over year."

To learn more about CombineNet's sourcing analytics capabilities, please visit: http://www.combinenet.com/our-product/scenariooptimization.aspx

About CombineNet

CombineNet, Inc. is the award-winning advanced sourcing technology company. CombineNet's ASAP product (Advanced Sourcing Application Platform) is a best-in-class Software as a Service (SaaS) e-sourcing solution that helps customers deliver the absolute best total cost of goods and services based on their unique business needs.  CombineNet ASAP is used to speed, simplify, optimize and centralize the sourcing of any and all spend categories from global suppliers: direct and indirect materials, all modes of transportation and services. In its 11 years in business, CombineNet has a proven track record of driving significant bottom-line and productivity savings for its clientele.  www.combinenet.com

SOURCE CombineNet, Inc.