Asista and Vignette Complete First B2B Integration of an Ariba-Based Commerce Platform

Business Wire, Oct 12, 2000

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

AUSTIN, Texas & MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 12, 2000

The Integration Of Asista's Marketplace and Adosa's Back-End

System Sets the Standard for Future Asista-Vignette B2B Integration

Projects in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil

These XML-Based Integrations Allow for Back-End Systems

of Companies and Exchanges to Communicate 100% Automatically

and Securely, Which Translate Into Faster Turnaround Time,

Fewer Manual Errors and Reduced Personnel

Asista.com (www.asista.com), the leading business-to-business digital marketplace for the sale and purchase of indirect goods and services in Latin America, and Vignette Corp. (Nasdaq:VIGN), the leading supplier of e-business applications, today announced the successful completion of the first B2B integration ever between an electronic marketplace and a company's back-end system in Latin America on Sept. 22, 2000.

"The real value of B2B e-commerce comes through integration: the in-house automation of one company's operating processes are merely necessary, while the integration of companies within a virtual marketplace, is revolutionary," said Carlos A. Guajardo, founder and CEO of Asista.com. "Asista has proved once more to be the first horizontal B2B marketplace in Latin America to set the standards for future exchanges of its kind," added Guajardo.

A couple of days after the project was completed, Asista and Adosa (one of Mexico's leading distributors of office supplies) tested the integration by successfully completing the first 100% automatic and secure B2B transaction in Latin America, without any kind of manual intervention. These integrations are designed for back-end systems to communicate and automate the entire buying and selling processes of companies, with direct impact on their sales, accounting, fulfillment and procurement systems.

"Vignette has strengthened its leadership position by entering the Latin American market and together with Asista becoming the first to integrate a many-to-many electronic marketplace and a Latin American supplier back-end system," said Mike Vollman, senior vice president of sales and services of Vignette Corp.

HOW IT WORKS -- A buyer generated an electronic purchase order (PO) in Asista's Ariba based e-marketplace, which was transmitted to Adosa via the Internet. Adosa received and imported the electronic PO into their back-end system automatically, and their system responded by automatically starting the normal process of credit authorization and availability check. This in turn generated an acknowledgement of the order, which was then sent back as confirmation to the company that placed the order. Adosa then proceeded with their routine fulfillment and shipping processes in the warehouse and updated their back-end system, which automatically generated and sent a shipping confirmation to the company that ordered the merchandise. All these electronic documents in XML format, were managed, securely transported and integrated to Adosa's back-office system using Vignette Corporation's eBizXchange application.

"This integration has opened up a whole new world to us which translates into effortless Internet sales, automated processing and quicker turnarounds. It enables us to shift people from doing the tedious work into more productive areas thus increasing sales," said Manuel Gomez, CEO of Adosa. "We can also grow without having to add more people to the process. We have now, with the help of Asista, stepped into the 21st century as a fully automated and integrated company," pointed Gomez.

About Asista

Asista is headquartered in Miami, Fla., and has offices in Monterrey, Mexico City, Argentina and Brazil. Asista.com is positioned as the largest, most advanced horizontal B2B eMarketplace in Latin America, currently carrying out thousands of transactions per year. Today, Asista has around 150 (one hundred and fifty) participants in its three different marketplaces and over 200,000 (two hundred thousand) unique SKU's in its universal electronic catalog. Asista has built catalog factories in each country for the rationalization and normalization of its catalog items. Asista's most important financial partners are JP Morgan Capital and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Asista uses the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform as its technology platform, which allows small, medium and large-sized companies to buy and sell indirect goods and services. For more information visit their Web site at http://www.asista.com.

About Vignette

Vignette Corp. is the leading supplier of e-business applications. Vignette's products enable businesses to create and extend relationships with prospects and customers and ease high-volume transaction exchanges with suppliers and partners, all of which enhances customer satisfaction. Vignette powers more than 1,000 leading e-businesses. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Vignette has offices located throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia and can be found on the Web at http://www.vignette.com.

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