Procurement software vendor Intelisys is launching 4Sight, a program that lets users of its IEC-Enterprise purchasing application compare their processes against a database of benchmarks for 15 processes related to procurement compiled from companies such as Cargill, Sprint, and TRW. Companies can use 4Sight to compare their process costs for purchasing nonproduction supplies to averages in the database, which is maintained by a unit of AnswerThink Consulting Group Inc.

"We're wrapping intellectual property around our product," says Deborah Rosen, VP of North American sales at Intelisys. "Instead of just installing software, our customers will get metrics to see where their processes rate and where they need to improve."

Pricing for 4Sight starts at 10% of Intelisys' software license fee, which is $1.05 million for 7,000 users.

Services are also key to Oracle's FastForward Internet Procurement, the first online-purchasing application launched under the company's initiative to sell applications software to businesses with revenue of $20 million to $500 million. The product includes implementation and training services plus a year of Oracle's around-the-clock Silver-level support.

FastForward Internet Procurement includes a Self-Service Purchasing desktop module, a Purchasing & Payables enterprise application, and catalogs from suppliers Corporate Express and W.W. Grainger. Oracle promises to install the product, which will be available next week, in 60 business days or less. Pricing hasn't been set.

Bundling services is a smart thing for online-procurement vendors to do, says Torrey Byles, president of E-commerce research firm Granada Research. "Procurement is not as well-defined a business process as some others that have been automated by packaged applications, so you'll see a lot of services issues springing up around it."

Other enterprise application providers are also introducing Web purchasing products. Baan Co. just unveiled E-Procurement as part of its E-Enterprise suite of Web apps (see story, p. 134), and SAP plans to disclose new procurement customers at its European users' conference next week.