THE launch of First Point Supplybase later this year will give Western Australian businesses the opportunity to secure a bigger slice of lucrative contracts in the global oil and gas sector.
THE launch of First Point Supplybase later this year will give Western Australian businesses the opportunity to secure a bigger slice of lucrative contracts in the global oil and gas sector.
This global online platform for oil and gas suppliers to pre-register, or stake their credentials for work in this booming industry, is the result of UK-based procurement services group Achilles’ acquisition of Perth-based operation Supplybase.
Spearheaded by Pretzel Logic founder Steve Pretzel, Supplybase was established in partnership with the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association in 1998 to produce a standardised online pre-qualification system for businesses seeking work in the Australian oil and gas industry.
It has since evolved into a standalone business headed by Mr Pretzel and is utilised by industry heavyweights including Chevron, Santos and Woodside.
The rebranded First Point Supplybase will merge the Supplybase customer base with Achilles’ international database of vendors.
The merged system will give local companies the chance to compare their operations with their global peers and potentially make changes to give them a competitive edge.
“The local content issue comes down to two choices – you either put in place mandatory quotas, which is a hand-out to the local industry, or you work at helping those companies become truly internationally competitive so there is no commercial reason not to use them,” Mr Pretzel said.
“That is where we think First Point Supplybase can play a role, by allowing local companies to see some international benchmarks.”
Mr Pretzel said the information system could also connect local companies with other international operators, providing the opportunity for WA businesses to partner with suppliers in other parts of the world to bid for new business.
“If we can connect them to the global supply chain there are opportunities for Australian companies to become part of international consortia and joint ventures,” he said.
Mr Pretzel will continue to run the merged First Point Supplybase system for at least two years to achieve the initial project objective, which was to build a “standardised pre-qualification system” for suppliers in the oil and gas sector.
Achilles’ acquisition of the Supplybase business will bring a new rigour and scale to the system Mr Pretzel claimed was critical to its success.
“The single biggest difference between what we had before and what we have now with Achilles and their model is that no information is visible unless it has been checked,” Mr Pretzel told WA Business News.
“It’s obviously a lot more labour intensive but it gives those companies the confidence that if there is information there they can rely on it.”
First Point Supplybase will go head to head with competing systems, including the Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s online electronic library Project Connect.
However, Mr Pretzel said First Point Supplybase had gone beyond being a simple directory and had the potential to deliver the promise of true pre-qualification for vendors.
He said the Supplybase-Achilles model benefitted suppliers and buyers equally rather than interceding in the transaction.
“I always believed in the concept of it but the challenge was to ratchet up both the buyer and supplier side simultaneously and get to that point of critical mass where the whole industry was using it,” Mr Pretzel said.
Mr Pretzel is best known for his groundbreaking web development business Pretzel Logic. Established in 1992 when Mr Pretzel was jut 35, the business was highly awarded; however the dot.com crash took its toll on the operation and it went into administration in 2003.
It was subsequently bought by WA technology operation PIVOD but Mr Pretzel cut his ties with the business in 2007. He continued to run Supplybase as a stand-alone operation throughout this period.
