Greenwoods introduced Mr O'Brien to its landmark e-commerce site - eGreenwoods (http://ecatalogue.greenwoodscomms.com) - which was launched in August 2004 and has been adopted by major industry players including Orange and Thus plc. Mike O'Brien stated, "We now have high-tech companies like Greenwoods putting Britain at the forefront of computer technology. The company has grown quickly on the back of innovation and strong leadership."

The interest in eGreenwoods is not surprising given the financial implication it can have on process cost savings. The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply estimate that the traditional cost of raising a purchase order is £50. However, when using ecommerce this falls to £10 per order. Whilst this may vary between companies, the underlying fact is that due to less paperwork, increased control and improved visibility e-commerce results in process efficiencies and reduced costs.

Founded in 1989, Greenwoods Communications has invested heavily in e-commerce - a technology that is revolutionising business procurement. Greenwoods has been at the forefront of e-commerce development in the telecoms industry. About Greenwoods and e-commerce:

• Invested in the region of £300,000 in e-commerce over the past four years
• Introduced eGreenwoods that provides users with easy to access information on thousands of telecom products
• eGreenwoods associates engineers with their company, so that they can only view their contract prices and products
• The site has been developed to allow companies to create an approval process for each order. Therefore, orders do not reach Greenwoods until they have been approved by line managers or supervisors
• Purchasing managers are able to identify spend levels and usage patterns to help effectively manage future buying trends
• Finance departments have total expenditure visibility across the organisation
• eGreenwoods provides the ideal channel for telecoms companies to manage their supply chain