Mr. Mark Eigenbauer reports

THE TEXAS COMPTROLLER OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AWARDS MDF COMMERCE'S SOURCE-TO-CONTRACT SOLUTION TO POWER PROCUREMENT INITIATIVES

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (Texas CPA), an agency of the State of Texas, has signed an agreement for its statewide procurement division (SPD) to use MDF Commerce Inc.'s source-to-contract suite of solutions, which includes a supplier portal for reconciliation and payment of convenience fees, an important need for the office. This initiative will power the SPD's contract development, supplier relationship and contract management processes. It will play a critical role in the integration between the company's source-to-contract solution and both the Electronic State Business Daily (ESBD), an on-line application of the Texas SmartBuy website where agencies post bid opportunities and awards, and the Centralized Master Bidders List (CMBL), the state's global suppliers' directory.

SPD is the central purchasing office responsible for awarding and managing non-IT (information technology) statewide contracts used by more than 200 state agencies and 1,750 local governments. Over the term of the agreement, the Texas comptroller will benefit from the company's comprehensive source-to-contract technology, stemming from its 20-plus years of experience with the public sector, including the workstream functionalities of three of the five modules of MDF's suite: source, connect and contract.

"The statewide procurement division is looking forward to working with MDF Commerce to modernize our contract development and contract management processes," said Bobby Pounds, state chief procurement officer and SPD director. "I am deeply appreciative of the effort that SPD and Texas CPA staff put into working with MDF in getting this new platform in place for Texas. Streamlining the contracting process will benefit our team, our vendors and our state agency customers, and will better serve our ultimate customers, the taxpayers of Texas."

"This is a special opportunity to collaborate with the Texas CPA. We look forward to supporting their procurement process with our advanced source-to-contract technology, and to providing a seamless integration with their existing solicitation publication and vendor management systems," said Mark Eigenbauer, president, e-procurement, MDF Commerce. "This technology will play a critical role in the transformation of the procurement function in the state. Streamlining the contract life cycle management process into a single automated system will provide better controls, flexibility, transparency, standardization, and cost and time savings in procurement of statewide contracts for goods and services, benefiting the SPD staff, state agencies, co-operative purchasing members served by the SPD, and the vendor community."

The company's full procurement solution, adopted by approximately 6,500 public-sector buying organizations, powers the critical work of public procurement throughout North America and includes:

• Source -- strategic sourcing to streamline solicitation creation, publication, evaluation and awarding in one easy-to-use platform;
• Connect -- vendor management to improve insight and automation to connect with vendors throughout the procurement process with qualification, performance management and contract negotiation;
• Contract -- contract life cycle management (CLM) to increase efficiency and transparency through collaborative authoring, performance monitoring and overall CLM;
• Procure -- requisition to pay to improve the entire procurement process through purchase orders, invoicing, payments, spend reporting and an integration with the entity ERP (enterprise resource planning);
• Shop -- marketplace to provide buyers a shared community and a convenient experience to order off existing contracts with supplier-uploaded catalogs.

About MDF Commerce Inc.

MDF Commerce enables the flow of commerce by providing a broad set of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions designed to optimize and accelerate commercial interactions between buyers and sellers. Its platforms and services empower businesses around the world, enabling them to generate billions of dollars in transactions on an annual basis. The company's e-procurement, e-commerce and e-marketplace solutions are supported by a strong and dedicated team of approximately 650 employees based in Canada, the United States, Ukraine and China.