crossgate signs in BASF’s Name
Taking a safe approach on tax issues thanks to eInvoicing
Starnberg on 16 November 2007
As of today, BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, is employing the EDI services provided by crossgate AG, the specialist in B2B integration and cross-company automation, to deal with its incoming supplier invoices and credit notes, including the use of qualified digital signatures. As part of the eInvoicing project, crossgate has agreed to sign and validate all the EDI data on behalf of BASF’s suppliers.
When the pilot phase ends in February 2008, up to a thousand of BASF’s business partners will then be successively linked up to the electronic B2B system. This step is expected to result in considerable cost-savings for the chemical enterprise while at the same time accelerating its processes and reducing the amount of errors that occur.
The chemistry’s definitely right in this case! BASF has been supplying customers from virtually every single industry with high-quality products and intelligent system-based solutions for over 140 years. Its portfolio covers chemicals, synthetic products, refined products, pesticides, fine chemicals, crude oil and natural gas. To be able to maintain its leading role on the global market in future, the company intends to keep up its profitable growth strategy.
Reductions in costs and the optimisation of its corporate processes will both play a significant role here, and digitising the process of exchanging data will take account of both of these aspects.
In crossgate’s transaction-based business model, BASF is not required to invest in any hardware or software at all as the solution is based on its existing IT infrastructure. All it is charged is a fee for the documents that have actually been transmitted via crossgate’s B2B platform. The two companies are also working together with respect to the roll-out for BASF’s suppliers – the roll-out portal provided by crossgate is being employed to gather relevant information about the suppliers, for instance. BASF’s business partners are learning about the new electronic system in direct interaction with the company’s staff.
“Our eInvoicing service doesn’t just result in cost- and process-related benefits for BASF. More importantly, the qualified digital signatures we employ mean that BASF is in a safe position regarding tax issues,” explains Stefan Tittel, who is the founder and CEO of crossgate AG. Once the pilot phase of the project has been completed in spring 2008, up to a thousand suppliers are going to be connected up to the B2B system. From that point on, approximately 47,000 messages a month are expected to be transmitted electronically.
crossgate AG (formerly indatex SCI GmbH)
– the company:
The crossgate AG, based in Starnberg, has been the supplier of europe’s largest centralized transaction platform, the Business Integration Platform™ (B.I.P.), for six years now. The focus of the company is on the innovative integration of critical and inter-company business processes, as well as transaction-based process handling. crossgate combines industry and process know-how for more than 34.000 companies in the automotive and manufacturing industries, logistics, and retailing with great technological problemsolving ability in IT. The list of customers includes established names like Audi, Bermbo, CeramTec, Fiege, Hartmann, Lanxess, Philips, voestalpine Automotive, VW und Zumtobel.
The principal shareholders of crossgate are the DAH-Beteiligungsgesellschaft of the family of the SAP founder Dietmar Hopp, the Otto Wolff Industrieberatung und Beteiligungen GmbH and the Al-Jomaih Group. There are over 200 employees in five locations in Germany and subsidiaries in Milan (crossgate Italia S.P.A.), New York and Dublin / Ireland. The founder and CEO of crossgate is Stefan Tittel.
