10 Oct 2008 07:00
| Immediate release | 10 October 2008 |
@UK PLC
("@UK" or the "Company")
Spend Analysis Contract Win
@UK PLC (AIM:ATUK.L), a provider of ecommerce, eprocurement, and spend analysis software solutions to government, health and private sectors, today announces the award of an OGCbuying.solutions framework for data manipulation and spend analysis.
Ronald Duncan, Chairman of @UK PLC, said
"We are delighted that our hard work in creating a new ground breaking spend analysis product the "Axiascope" has been rewarded with this framework award by OGCbuying.solutions. We are grateful to our research partners Reading University and Goldsmiths College London, for their help. This is the first spin off from our joint work into product classification as part of our new search engine"
The framework is not exclusive and @UK PLC is one of eight suppliers that have been awarded a framework. The further details are in the Notes which contain the full OGCbuying solutions release.
Notes to Editors
@UK PLC
Is a leading UK electronic marketplace provider, that has formed over 160,000 companies using its SiteGenerator ecommerce engine and is providing ecommerce to NHS Suppliers as part of NHS Cat with NHS Supply Chain.
@UK's software provides a secure internet eMarketplace enabling buyers such as local authorities, schools and hospitals to buy online from commercial suppliers ranging from large corporations to small to medium enterprises (SMEs). This allows buying and selling to take place with no paperwork and transposition reduced chance of errors, achieving major savings throughout the supply chain.
@UK PLC also offers services to new businesses, including incorporation, company secretarial services and filing annual returns.
@UK is included in the Software and Computer Services Sector (9530). For further information please visit www.uk-plc.net.
@UK PLC Research and Coding International
The Axiascope is a creation of the @UK PLC Research team who jointly working with Reading University and Goldsmiths College London have been applying Artificial Intelligence techniques to the @UK PLC marketplace and the over 30 years of historic purchasing data gathered by Coding International.
@UK PLC Research
@UK PLC Research was established in 2003, with its first project a 3 year investigation into the application of Artificial Intelligence into Fraud Detection. The result was an award winning fraud detection system.
@UK PLC Research is headed up by Dr John Howroyd. John was a mathematics lecture in the Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences at Goldsmiths College London. His Phd "on the theory of Hausdorff measures in metric spaces" was completed in 1994. His early papers were in mathematics building on his phd work, moving into applying these techniques to computer science.
@UK PLC Research have 3 joint projects on matching, classification, and spidering. The focus has now moved from benchmarking and implementing current best practice to the creation of new algorithms and techniques that improve on current best practice.
Coding International
Coding International (previously known as the NSV Centre), was privatised in 1999 and has maintained NSV (National Supplier Vocabulary) since its inception over 30 years ago. NSV now has over 500,000 item level codes. Coding International also have a contract to maintain the ProClass classification system, and cross mappings to NHS eClass, UNSPSC, and CPV classification systems. @UK PLC purchased Coding International in 2006, and has been working on applying its AI technology to Coding Internationals rich information since purchase.
@UK PLC Contact
Ronald Duncan
Chairman
Tel 0118 963 7000
Beaumont Cornish Limited
Roland Cornish
Tel 0207 628 3396
APPENDIX : Full text of OGC Buying Solutions PRESS RELEASE
NEW SPEND ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT OFFERS CUTTING EDGE DATA MANIPULATION AND ANALYSIS TOOLS
OGCbuying.solutions, an executive agency of the Office of Government Commerce in HM Treasury, has today announced the launch of its Spend Analysis framework agreement. The Spend Analysis service will deliver a range of data manipulation and analysis tools including:
Extraction and aggregation of dispersed data;
Cleansing and enrichment of aggregated data;
Validation of data; and
Web deployed user analysis tools.
This will provide customer organisations with a clear picture of buying patterns. Providing a process of aggregating, classifying and leveraging spend Data for the purpose of reducing costs, improving operational performance and ensuring compliance.
The services available under the framework agreement will include:
the provision of technical solutions for analysing customer spend data;
the provision of consultancy support to configure data analysis such that they deliver the greatest benefits for customers and comply with EU public procurement legislation
The new framework agreement will come into effect on the 1 October 2008 for a period of four years. This follows a rigorous competitive tender process advertised via the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
The successful suppliers who tendered are:
@UK Plc
Accenture (UK) Limited
Bravosolution Plc
Emptoris Inc
Etesius Limited
IBM United Kingdom Limited
Purchasing Index UK Limited
Spikes Cavell Analytic Limited
Robert Knapman, Director of eCommerce at Buying Solutions, said today:
"This is a very exciting framework agreement which will provide customers with a hugely useful yet simple process of aggregating, classifying and leveraging spend data for the purpose of reducing costs, improving operational performance, enabling compliance and increasing opportunities for collaboration."
Notes to Editors
OGCbuying.solutions is the trading arm of the Office of Government Commerce, which is itself an office of HM Treasury.
It provides public sector procurement professionals with a route to the products and services they need to maximise procurement efficiency and value for money. Its contracts and framework agreements offer substantial savings through significant buying power, economies of scale and strategic partnerships.
Rigorous tendering and evaluation processes ensure that products and services are checked for quality, price competitiveness, fitness for purpose and compliance with statutory requirements. These products and services are available through OGCbuying.solutions' framework agreements, managed services and other procurement arrangements.
More details are available on the website: www.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk
The Office of Government Commerce is an independent office of HM Treasury, established to help Government deliver best value from its spending. The OGC works with central Government departments and other public sector organisations to provide policy standards and guidance on best practice in procurement, projects and estate management, and monitors and challenges Departments' performance against these standards, grounded in an evidence base of information and assurance.
It promotes and fosters collaborative procurement across the public sector to deliver better value for money and better public services; and it provides innovative ways to develop Government's commercial and procurement capability, including leadership of the Government Procurement Service.
More details are available on the website: www.ogc.gov.uk
Media contact:
Ben Heppenstall
ben.heppenstall@ogcbs.gsi.gov.uk
Tel: 0151 672 2218