EDF Energy champions purchasing portal

System designed to boost EDF Energy's relationships with clients and suppliers

The system helps the company comply with EU regulations

French power company EDF has implemented a portal designed to improve relationships with suppliers and clients by coordinating processes, boosting productivity and providing better access to information.

The system covers the entire purchasing process and £5.9bn worth of purchasing volume, producing information on the reduction of paper flow and consumption, and automated reports about tendering processes, helping to satisfy EU regulations.

Collaboration has improved, allowing the organisation to plan and coordinate better, according to Yves Vignoles, head of information system purchasing at EDF in France.

"We had a serious need of to aggregate demand across the organisation as we were very decentralised," he said.

"Orders were being placed in multiple locations, with no planning, for several identical items by many different purchasing people with minimal coordination.

"We are going to propose this tool to be rolled out in other countries, although subsidiaries make their own decision to use the portal or not."

The system, from supplier BravoSolution, has been rolled out to 4,000 active EDF users and 12,200 have signed up.