U.S. Steel Makes Major B2B Move to Internet with e-STEEL
U.S. Steel Group, a unit of USX Corporation and the largest U.S. steel producer, and New York City-based e-STEEL Corporation, a leading online exchange for the global steel industry, announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance.
As part of the agreement, U. S. Steel will take a minority stake in e-STEEL, joining a group of blue-chip investors backing the B2B online exchange. U. S. Steel plans to use the e-STEEL Exchange for prime and non-prime transactions.
"We are very impressed with e-STEEL and their strategy to create a negotiation-based, industry-wide e-Commerce solution," said U. S. Steel President, Paul Wilhelm. "We believe e-Commerce will provide real value to U. S. Steel and our customers."
In 1999, U. S. Steel generated revenues in excess of $5.3 billion primarily from sales of 10.6 million tons of steel products.
"e-STEEL proved to us throughout the evaluation process that it understands the business needs of our customers," Wilhelm added. "We look forward to working with e-STEEL in implementing more efficient ways of buying and selling steel products."
"This agreement with U. S. Steel, a company recognized worldwide for quality, performance and technology leadership, is a significant validation of the e-STEEL vision," said e-STEEL Chairman, CEO and Founder, Michael S. Levin. "Today marks an important turning point in steel e-Commerce. It's a great honor for all of us to officially welcome U. S. Steel to the e-STEEL Exchange."
e-STEEL has also entered into agreements with USX Engineers and Consultants, Inc. (UEC), a wholly owned subsidiary of USX, for joint marketing and implementation of system integration services. These services will allow e-STEEL members to take advantage of e-Commerce by linking the seller's and buyer's business systems to the e-STEEL site.
Under this agreement, the two companies will work together to leverage UEC's industry application expertise to accelerate integration by steel companies throughout the world with e-STEEL systems.
Through the marketing agreement, e-STEEL sales and marketing efforts will be enhanced by the support of UEC's commercial organization. The combination of the two sales and marketing groups will allow a rapid world-wide approach to increasing membership and transactions on the e-STEEL site.
Currently the e-STEEL Exchange has 1,300 member companies from 65 countries representing the key segments of the global steel industry, including 75 mills, 290 service centers, 335 fabricators, 145 distributors and 95 major OEM/end users.
"By working with e-STEEL, which we believe is on the leading edge of B2B e-Commerce, UEC gains an important global opportunity to use its expertise to add customer value and participate in the fast growing world of steel e-Commerce," said UEC President, John Goodish.
Integration of extensive data requirements and complex systems with the e-STEEL Exchange will provide cost efficient e-Commerce for steel companies throughout their primary business process areas, such as inventory management and order fulfillment.