Real-time Pricing Module by Heiler connects Shell & DEA Oil with energy service provider envia

Stuttgart, 27. June, 2002 – envia Energie Sachsen Brandenburg AG in Chemnitz, Germany, orders mineral oil and lubricants online at Shell & DEA Oil GmbH in Hamburg. The orders are performed via the electronic catalog system Premium Business Catalog (PBC) of Heiler Software AG implemented at Shell & DEA. The real-time pricing module integrated with the PBC transmits the daily updated product prices of Shell & DEA. With this envia is the first user worldwide of a procurement solution of this kind in the mineral oil industry.

Since the beginnings of June this year the energy service provider envia orders mineral oil online via a Business-to-Business platform of Shell & DEA Oil GmbH. Core of this sales solution forms the Premium Business Catalog (PBC) of Heiler Software AG. envia performs the procurement via SAP Enterprise Buyer Professional. The immediate benefit: the procurement periods decrease and the herewith-connected process costs drop. envia Energie Sachsen Brandenburg AG is the biggest regional energy service provider in the new West German states and supplies approximately 1.2 million customers with electricity, heat and services around water, telecommunication and energy. With more than 1.1 billion euros turnover and approximately 2,700 employees envia is one of the ten most important industrial enterprises in the new West German states.

envia orders Shell & DEA products whose prices change almost every day. Crude oil experts of Shell & DEA in Hamburg constantly watch the market and on the basis of questionings and notifications of market active interlocutors they determine current prices of regions and products. The representative price quotations, resulting from determined directives, are used as an accepted basis for price agreements between trading partners.

Objective of the electronic catalog of Shell & DEA Oil, envia is accessing to, is the provision of all updated information concerning mineral oil, and other sources of energy. The center of interest are daily price quotations. The catalog has to be able to mirror dynamic prices. These are prices oriented by the market trend, and by the price formulas based on basic agreements.

"Heiler Software AG has developed a formula-based price functionality which is integrated in the catalog software. The sales staff of Shell & DEA Oil is now able to file price formulas in the pricing module, which they negotiated according to the basic agreement. In the simple version altering notifications can be entered manually or linked to a back-end-system every day. Afterwards the values are automatically transferred to the catalog software", says Gunther Krambeer, Head of E-Business at Shell & DEA Oil GmbH in Hamburg. "The digital, central administration of the information of basic agreements result in obvious operative benefits. Moreover the provision of current oil market research data facilitates the sales processes."

Thus both sales representatives of Shell & DEA and employees of envia work with the same daily updated prices. A further benefit for envia: the solution replaces the manual calculation with complicated formulas. This again accelerates the turnaround time and helps to lower the process costs on the procurement side. Since Shell & DEA Oil is in charge of the content management of the catalog data, envia doesn't have to care about it. "Naturally we keep watching the price development on the market and analyzing the profitability of this kind of procurement", says Dr. Gert Pfeilschmidt, branch manager purchasing and logistics of envia.

The energy service provider envia proves that companies, which already work with e-procurement solutions, can seamlessly access the Heiler solutions of their suppliers, in order to further develop their catalog-based procurement. With its B2B-platform, driven by the Heiler Premium Business Catalog, Shell & DEA Oil is a big step ahead of other suppliers. Introducing a procurement system it can early provide business customers with an electronic product catalog.

"Through the operation at Shell & DEA Oil GmbH and the integration of envia Heiler Software AG was able to decisively expand the spectrum of the PBC in two respects. First the PBC is used for the sale of strategic MRO goods. Secondly Shell & DEA Oil explicitly uses the PBC for the establishment of a multi buyer catalog", explains Rolf Heiler, CEO of Heiler Software AG in Stuttgart. "The integral solution at Shell & DEA clarifies the position of Heiler Software AG as one of the technologically leading supplier of electronic catalog systems."

About Shell & DEA Oil GmbH:
Shell & DEA Oil GmbH in Hamburg is one of the leading mineral oil companies in Germany. It runs four refineries and is participated in two other refineries. With the brands Shell and DEA it runs approximately 3,200 gas stations (state January, 2002) and has thus one of the biggest gas station networks in Germany. Besides fuel it offers the whole range of mineral oil products to the market. Shell & DEA sells fuel oil and lubricants, flight turbine fuel and bitumen, as well as high-quality services around mobility and heat throughout Germany via a net of subsidiaries and partners - among others via their biggest subsidiary, Shell & DEA Direct GmbH. Thus it comprises the oil downstream business of both companies, that is to say, the refineries, logistics, sales and marketing of mineral oil products within an international organization in more than 130 countries.

About envia:
envia Energie Sachsen Brandenburg AG, with its headquarter in Chemnitz, is the biggest regional energy service provider in the new West German states. The company provides about 1.2 million customers with electricity, heat, water, telecommunication and services around energy. 70% of the value added, as well as of the purchase and investment volume stay in the region. 80 % of the demand for electricity is covered by the local brown coal. With approximately 2,700 employees the company is one of the most important employers in Saxony and Brandenburg. Almost 200 young people receive a solid vocational training at envia. With its training quota of 7.6 % they range clearly above the average.

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