Welsh Housing Association is Leading the Way in Collaborative Procurement Excellence in Wales

27th July 2009, LONDON, UK - ProcServe, a leading provider of procurement and electronic trading solutions, today announced that Grŵp Gwalia, a Welsh Housing Association, is the first organisation to go live with all components of the xchangewales programme including xchangewales eTrading, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government.

xchangewales is a ground breaking programme that allows all public sector organisations in Wales to source, tender, evaluate, order and pay for goods and services at a click of a button. The electronic tools and web based services help to improve efficiency, increase productivity and lower the cost of doing business. ProcServe was appointed by the Welsh Assembly Government to deliver a key part of the eProcurement platform for the xchangewales programme.

Grŵp Gwalia is the first Welsh Public Sector organisation to adopt all key elements of the Welsh Assembly Government's sponsored eProcurement solution, xchangewales. Grŵp Gwalia has taken a pioneering step to be the first organisation to go live with eTrading. The programme offers them many advantages including:

• Every transaction goes through a central hub and makes capturing management information easier and more accurate than before. 
• It has been assessed that each transaction made through xchangewales saves the organisation around £26. 
• Central control is coupled with devolved purchasing responsibility. Use of xchangewales has enabled Grŵp Gwalia to achieve the targets set within their Procurement Strategy and provide an equality of service across the organisation.

Tracey Healey, Director of Procurement & Business Management for Grŵp Gwalia, gave her view of the xchangewales programme implementation: "Every organisation adopting eProcurement should undertake some form of business process change on both their internal and external processes. This can help to achieve major process efficiencies and savings in the purchase to pay process. Even taking a couple of steps out of the P2P process can yield significant savings in terms of time and cost."

Veera Johnson, Chief Executive of ProcServe, said; "Grŵp Gwalia is a beacon to all in UK Public Sector and are leading the way in driving efficiencies and putting money back in to providing world class services to the people of Wales. We are excited to be working with them and have been impressed with their level of commitment and guidance, from the top level management down throughout the organisation, to push this programme to succeed."

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

Notes to Editors

About Grŵp Gwalia
Grŵp Gwalia Cyf, established in 1973, is a leading provider of social housing in south and mid Wales, managing over 5,500 high quality, affordable homes and meeting the needs of a broad and diverse range of people in the community. Gwalia comprises five Registered Social Landlords. Grŵp Gwalia Cyf is committed to the building and maintenance of high quality social housing at affordable rents in sustainable communities. For more information, please visit www.gwaliaprocurement.com

About xchangewales
xchangewales is a ground breaking programme that allows all public sector organisations in Wales to source, tender, evaluate, order and pay for goods and services at a click of a button. The electronic tools and web-based services help to improve efficiency, increase productivity and lower the cost of doing business. For more information, please visit www.xchangewales.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 also delivers OPEN and xchangewales, which are underpinned by the Zanzibar system on behalf of the UK Public Sector. For more information, please visit www.procserve.com.