Advantage West Midlands Regional Development Agency Joins The ProcServe Trading Network

17th MARCH 2010, LONDON, UK - ProcServe, a global leading provider of strategic collaborative procurement and electronic trading solutions, today announced that the Advantage West Midlands Regional Development Agency (RDA) has become the latest Public Sector organisation to join its Trading Network. Advantage West Midlands is expecting the system to deliver a return on first year investment in less than 6 months.

ProcServe will be delivering a fully hosted purchase-to-pay (P2P) and marketplace solution under the Zanzibar programme that integrates directly into the eMarketplace system for Advantage West Midlands in just under three months.

Advantage West Midlands was able to select ProcServe from the Zanzibar National Buying Solutions Framework, which is available pre-tendered to any Public Sector Body in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The ProcServe Trading Network holds all the National and Regional Collaborative Contracts and is a key cornerstone of the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) recommendations for significant savings across Public Sector procurement. The Network already holds content from over 9,000 Suppliers across all categories of goods and services across the UK public sector.

"The need for efficiency savings, especially in Purchasing is now of paramount importance for all organisations," explains Claire Evans, Director of Finance at Advantage West Midlands. "The fact that the Managed Service is available on a National Framework and was a key cornerstone of the OEP report made it the obvious choice for our organisation. We were also highly impressed by the ease of access to the Marketplace for SME suppliers across our region, engaging with all suppliers in the West Midlands is a key factor for our organisation."

Veera Johnson, CEO of ProcServe, commented: "We are delighted to welcome Advantage West Midlands as the most recent member of our trading community. As outlined in the OEP recommendations, our P2P and Marketplace Service provides Public Sector organisations with a powerful mechanism to quickly realise their efficiency saving targets."

"Being a member of the ProcServe Trading Network will enable Advantage West Midlands to fully automate their Procurement Process while capturing all Spend Management Information for essential analysis and audit purposes. The Collaborative nature of the content on the Marketplace also means that the RDA has led the way for purchasing collaboration across all the other eight RDAs across England."

Media Contact:
Cora Byrne, ProcServe
T: +44(0)7889 996 345
E: cora.byrne@procserve.com

Notes to Editors:

About Advantage West Midlands
Advantage West Midlands is the regional development agency (RDA) for the West Midlands. They are one of nine RDAs in England established to transform the English regions through sustainable economic development. Their role is to lead the West Midlands region towards greater economic prosperity by working alongside partners to build upon the region's many strengths and to find solutions which address its unique challenges. For more information, please visit www.advantagewm.co.uk.

About ProcServe
ProcServe provides fast, flexible and secure electronic marketplaces and trading connectivity solutions. ProcServe's hosted, custom-branded solutions provide customers with the unique ability to leverage a software-as-a-service solution and maintain their own uniquely branded and configured marketplace. Customers enjoy a faster solution set up, lower cost of maintenance, and a secure environment. ProcServe is part of the Oracle PartnerNetwork. ProcServe also delivers OPEN and xchangewales, which are part of the Zanzibar programme on behalf of the UK Public Sector. For more information, please visit www.procserve.com.