Requisite Technology and Mitsui & Co. to Drive Adoption of B2B E-Commerce in Japan

Business Wire, Sept 19, 2001

Business Editors & Technology Writers

WESTMINSTER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 2001

Requisite Technology:

Mitsui Becomes Master Reseller of Catalog Content Management

Solution, Further Increasing Requisite's Global Reach

Mitsui & Co., Ltd., one of Japan's largest and most diversified international trading companies, and Requisite Technology(TM), Inc., today announced a strategic business alliance that allows Mitsui to resell Requisite's catalog content management solutions to help drive the adoption of e-commerce and e-procurement in Japan.

As a master reseller, Mitsui will market and sell Requisite's eMerge(TM) content management system, eMerge(TM) Contract Manager, and its patented BugsEye(TM) catalog finding engine. Also available through the alliance will be the newly launched Requisite Supplier Hub, an interactive, collaborative environment for suppliers to create and maintain their product information and content, making that content available to buying organizations and e-marketplaces. Together, these solutions offer procurement professionals and catalog administrators a robust platform for creating, managing, finding and distributing catalog content. Requisite's solutions will be available to all Japanese enterprises, including customers of SAP Japan Co., Ltd., Oracle Corporation Japan, Commerce One K.K. and others.

Mitsui has found that a majority of Japanese enterprises are transforming their existing paper catalogs into electronic catalogs for use in e-commerce and e-procurement initiatives. However, without a method for organizing and unifying content from multiple sources, buyers cannot successfully find items or make informed buying decisions to complete transactions.

"As the recognized leader in catalog content solutions across all major B2B platforms, Requisite is the only choice suitable for Japan's leading enterprises," says Kenichi Yamamoto, General Manager of Mitsui's IT Solutions Division. "This partnership is evidence of Requisite's strong commitment to the Japanese market."

To drive successful transactions and help buyer organizations reach return-on-investment objectives, Mitsui is endorsing and supporting the Requisite Unifying Structure (RUS(TM)), an open, global content organization standard built to assist end-user finding. Catalogs organized in RUS provide consistently categorized product and service information and allow buyers and marketplaces to unify diverse product and service information from multiple suppliers. RUS serves as a "taxonomy platform," allowing participants in the supply chain to use any custom category hierarchy or standard they desire, including UNSPSC, eCl@ss, and RossettaNet. RUS also allows individual suppliers to preserve business relationships, differentiate products and increase brand awareness.

"Mitsui is a world-class organization and our new agreement with Mitsui is a tremendous opportunity for Requisite to help drive the adoption of e-commerce, e-procurement and a common content categorization standard on a global scale," said Louis Faust III, acting CEO of Requisite Technology. "The growing market in Japan for e-procurement and e-commerce tools and services provides both companies a great opportunity for success."