IBM endorses PEPPOL

During a recent Commission hosted workshop on the Digital Single Market, IBM announces the roll-out of PEPPOL based solutions across Europe, while OpenPEPPOL presents e-Invoicing developments and key stakeholders’ roles for the ongoing maintenance of the network.

Niels Pagh-Rasmussen, Executive Architect, IBM

On February 21, 2013, at the event ‘Build, Connect, Grow: Make Business in the Digital Single Market’ (www.epractice.eu/events/lsp) the status of the Large Scale Pilots (LSPs) was presented in relation to the European Commission’s new initiative, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), a key instrument to promote growth, jobs and competitiveness through targeted infrastructure investment.

The conference served as the launching pad for IBM to announce the provision of an IBM PEPPOL Access Point and services related to the PEPPOL network and infrastructure.

“There is huge room for improvement in electronic procurement to establish a common standard across the EU, reaping significant operational benefits. IBM can now support all PEPPOL users with full solutions and value added services, down to the single components that help customers to manage their basic infrastructure.” – stated Niels Pagh-Rasmussen, Executive Architect at IBM.

IBMs services are ready and will see a roll out in spring 2013 and target public and private organisations, using the PEPPOL network for both business-to-business and business-to-government transactions, for the exchange of electronic documents based on the PEPPOL specifications.

“The success criteria for growing the PEPPOL community is that governmental authorities decide to mandate the use of PEPPOL as their framework and technical infrastructure for pan-European electronic procurement, while the ICT industry needs to take responsibility to deliver solutions and services that meet PEPPOL requirements.” – concluded IBM’s Executive Architect.

In the morning session of the event, Sven Rasmussen, Leader of the OpenPEPPOL Transport Infrastructure community provided an overview of developments in Europe, focusing on electronic invoicing.  Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Italy and other countries are rolling out PEPPOL-based solutions, with growing commitment from Member States that are planning the implementation of their e-Procurement national infrastructure.

The European Commission’s DG DIGIT, has announced their commitment to the long-term sustainability of PEPPOL, by providing support for the maintenance of the sample implementations of the PEPPOL Transport infrastructure through CIPA (Common Infrastructure for Public Administrations). DIGIT will handle change requests from OpenPEPPOL, through a joint process for release planning and support. 

OpenPEPPOL expressed strong support for the next phase of the CEN/BII (Business Interoperability Interfaces for Public Procurement in Europe) Workshop to build up on the results already achieved, as the PEPPOL Business Interoperability Specifications (BIS) represent the implementation guidelines of the CEN/BII profiles for public procurement.

The OpenPEPPOL community is growing steadily, with a number of European governments planning to become PEPPOL Authorities and taking a leading role in the governance of the PEPPOL network. Currently, PEPPOL Authorities are present in Norway (Difi), Denmark (DIGST), Sweden (ESV) and France (SGMAP).

With the commitment from a major ICT industry actor like IBM to build an open European e-Procurement infrastructure and the long-term focused initiatives of the European Commission through the LSPs and CEF, both the public and private sectors have now the confidence to adopt PEPPOL based-solutions to realise the savings and efficiencies of a standardised and integrated e-Procurement market.

The presentation of the conference “Build, Connect, Grow: Make Business in the Digital Single Market’ are available at:www.epractice.eu/events/lsp