April 19, 2005 - (HOSTSEARCH.COM) - Managed web hosting company Verio, a subsidiary of NTT Communications, today announced it will host an online sourcing marketplace for Source Global On-Demand (SourceGO), to facilitate and expedite sourcing transactions and tracking for companies in the textile, apparel and home furnishings industries in China and throughout the world.
SourceGO is touted as combining state-of-the-market Internet tools that provide clients the ability to collaborate and negotiate the pricing and delivery of textile and apparel products, finalize business transactions online, and track the processing and shipment of goods as well as make payments.
“The reduction in quotas on China-made fashion represents a shift in the textile and apparel industry,” said Tom Eggleston, chairman and CEO of SourceGo. “Modern technology, including hosted applications such as SourceGO, will continue to improve the efficiency of the industry, which in turn will increase speed to market while lowering the cost of products for end-users.”
The unique functionality provided by SourceGO requires the toughest network security in order to protect the proprietary interests of the retailers and apparel companies using the infrastructure to conduct business. Verio IntelliSecurity Services will serve to safeguard the data being transferred via SourceGo. Additionally, Verio’s managed hosting solution with health monitoring services ensures the management and maintenance of SourceGo hardware and software for minimal system downtime, and built-in data center redundancies give SourceGO and its clients confidence that proprietary data is safe.
Eggleston explained that the apparel supply chain has traditionally relied largely on paper-based ordering, communications and physical delivery of production specifications, all of which lengthens pre-production time. A SourceGO pilot program run by Mike Mikkelborg, general manager of SourceGO, resulted in an 80 percent reduction in time and cost in the apparel pre-production phase. He added that a collaborative, online system considerably speeds pre-production, positioning SourceGO users multiple steps ahead of their competition in terms of time to market, decreased cost of goods sold, fewer markdowns and better sell through.
Verio worked closely with SourceGO to develop a complex architecture comprised of multiple dedicated high-end application servers and a managed firewall. A dedicated online SQL server operates SourceGO’s vast and complex database of textile and apparel variations, including massive files of drawings and technical information.
Eggleston explained, “When a brand or retailer is formulating its next season’s fashion offering, there are a staggering number of options to be decided. For example, after a ‘look’ is created, decisions have to be made on yarn, fabric and fabric type, plain or pattern, collar style, thread color, button style and color, sleeve length – the list goes on and on. All of this data is stored on the server and accessible to each creator. This is true for every style developed for every season by every one of our end-user customers.”
“As an internationally-operated managed hosting company with data centers and a network that spans the globe, Verio is uniquely suited to assist SourceGO in its goals to ease the sourcing process,” said Harold Miltsch, vice president of Corporate Marketing for Verio. “Verio is pleased to be supporting the apparel industry in the US and around the world to work more efficiently with the newly-opened market in China and the businesses based there.”
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