The future of the worldwide internet commerce procurement applications market looks extremely promising, growing from $US147 million in revenues in 1998 to $5.3 billion by 2003, according to an IDC study released this week.
The study, "Internet commerce procurement application market review, forecast and user trends, 1998-2003", surveyed the top 40 internet commerce procurement vendors and more than 75 end-user organisations that use these applications. According to IDC, application users will jump from 600,000 in 1999 to 250 million by 2003. Businesses running these applications will save up to $103 billion on sales worth $1.375 trillion by 2003, IDC said.
Internet commerce procurement applications are resulting in lower costs and overall efficiency for businesses, IDC said. For example, Seattle-based software vendor Visio Corp implemented a Web-based procurement system last year and processing costs dropped from $113 per purchase order to $6, IDC said.
With these applications, businesses are buying goods and services from suppliers and trading partners, the research firm said.