Dan Tiernan, Dir. of Business Develop.
Mark Byrd, Director, Operations
Joe Holland, Director, Products

Product Line or Service — Internet based solution to support procurement for members of industry specific buying groups and large fragmented corporations that do not have a common technical infrastructure (e.g. Republic Industries, Thomson, RPM, etc.)

Technology/Proprietary Rights — The entire solution is Internet based utilizing a web development application licensed from Ironside Technologies, running on an MS-SQL Server Database in an MS-Windows NT environment.   The product team has over 10 years experience each in developing purchasing and sales systems, having piloted and/or implemented ordering systems in over 500 different organizations in every conceivable niche of manufacturing and distribution.  The “Community Data Model”, which allows groups of buyers and sellers to operate from a shared system, using a shared database, while allowing a personalized view for each member is unique in the marketplace and we are considering a patent application.

Market Opportunities — The Aatlas product, ecSCOREä, has been designed in a manner that it can be tailored to meet the purchasing needs of virtually any industry.  Aatlas’ goal is to become the dominant ‘marketplace’ in the industries that we choose to enter, much like Sabre had become the dominant marketplace for travel services.   We will achieve this dominance by partnering with influential ‘sponsors’ in each marketplace. Sponsors can be holding companies, franchisors, buying groups, trade groups, procurement outsourcing companies, associations, or other organizations that can influence or dictate the spending habits of large groups of buyers with common needs.  The sponsor will not only help to save the members money, but will also transform this community buying power into a revenue generating asset, from which they will benefit - up to $3 million per year for every $100 million in purchasing volume.  For example, in the Equine industry, Aatlas has partnered with a purchasing group called EquiSource, which is owned in part by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.  Similar sponsors have been identified and contacted in a wide range of industries including: textile manufacturing, coffee service companies, higher education, K-12 education, prisons, hotels, golf courses and many others.  Two other “buying communities” have already committed to implementation and two others are in negotiation.  Current market opportunities that have been identified and are in a sales cycle represent over $9 billion in purchases, which would generate over $200 million per year in revenue for Aatlas.  The total global market opportunity is no less than 100 times this amount. 

Marketing/Sales and Distribution — Unlike traditional systems that are focused on lowering costs by automating processes, ecSCORE™ is promoted as a means for industry ‘sponsors’ to generate revenue for their group (through supplier rebates) and provide bottom-line cost savings that average 15% for their members.  The sponsors have a financial incentive to implement ecSCORE and provide the credibility necessary to change the purchasing behaviors for groups of buyers and sellers transacting billions of dollars in purchases.  In order to promote these types of sales, Aatlas will need to hire Sales Directors with experience in complex solution selling environments, e.g. ERP Sales (SAP, etc.,).  ecSCORE should not require a high cost marketing structure, since the majority of the sales will be targeted to very specific industry sponsors.  Instead of telemarketing and mass-mailings, ecSCORE marketing will be more focused on research and analysis of specific markets and market players. In order to market and sell ecSCORE to large, fragmented corporations, a traditional software sales team will need to be developed. 

Manufacturing Development —  The founding team of Aatlas, drawing on over 40 years combined experience, spent over 6 months in detailed design of ecSCORE prior to any software coding.  Unlike most software development projects that focus on user screens and processes, the Aatlas team defined the overall processes and developed a data model to support the processes.  This disciplined approach has resulted in an overall design that should serve as a solid road map for the future. 

Competition — We are not aware of any direct competition utilizing industry specific buying groups to develop communities.  However, the potential competitors can be broken into three groups: custom systems designed for group purchasing, enterprise procurement applications (Ariba, CommerceOne, et al) and web marketplaces (Chemdex, Vertical Net, et al).  Each of these groups would have to make major shifts in strategy and product development to compete against the Aatlas approach.  The battles will be won on an industry by industry basis and in some industries, there may be multiple winners.  As Aatlas becomes the dominant player in any given marketplace, the ultimate competition may become The Robinson Patman Act (restrictions on supplier ability to offer preferential pricing to competitors) and the Sherman Anit-Trust Act.