PR Home October 23, 2013

Deployment of Exostar’s SourcePass Wins BAE Systems Chairman’s Award

Solution Recognized for Advances to Type 26 Ship Development Program for UK Ministry of Defence

HERNDON, VA, October 23, 2013 ─ Exostar, whose cloud-based solutions enable secure, cost-effective business-to-business collaboration, today announced its e-sourcing solution, SourcePass, is part of a winning nomination for a BAE Systems Chairman’s Award. BAE Systems’ Maritime – Naval Ships organizationreceived bronze-level recognition in the Transferring Best Practice category at an October 17th ceremony for its work with Exostar in support of the Type 26 ship development program for the UK Ministry of Defence.

BAE Systems had a long track record of successfully using Exostar’s SourcePass on other programs to:

  • Streamline and standardize sourcing processes, including creating a tender, responding to queries, and evaluating supplier proposals;
  • Improve accountability, visibility, and auditability for BAE Systems, its customers, and its suppliers throughout the sourcing process; and
  • Reduce cost through resource efficiency and more competitive bidding via reverse auctions.

However, the highly-sensitive nature of Type 26 program information meant any sourcing solution had to comply with UK Government rules and regulations defining where applications are hosted, where information is stored, and how information is transmitted. Because Exostar’s SourcePass was hosted in the U.S., it could not be leveraged for the Type 26 program.

To ensure compliance with requirements, Exostar worked with Maritime – Naval Ships personnel to deploy a new SourcePass instance on a secure BAE Systems server in the UK. To further enhance security, Exostar:

  • Connected the UK SourcePass instance to its Managed Access Gateway to allow BAE Systems to simply administer and grant access to the system; and
  • Provided BAE Systems with one-time password hardware tokens it could issue to its suppliers and customers to enable confirmation of user identities with strong two-factor authentication to control system access and protect sensitive information.

“The Chairman’s Award is a testament to the highly-collaborative effort between BAE Systems and Exostar to overcome a challenge and bring the right solution to bear,” said Elliot Webber, Supply Chain Lead, Project BOLT eSourcing, BAE Systems. “Without SourcePass, we were looking at a longer sourcing process where governance would be more difficult to enforce. Instead, we found a way to allow our business to realize the advantages of SourcePass in a restricted environment, and that benefits our company, our customer, and our suppliers.”

The annual Chairman’s Awards were established in 1996 to recognize people whose ideas, actions, and behaviors make BAE Systems a more competitive company, deliver benchmark performance, and further the company’s values. The Transferring Best Practice award category focuses on efforts that provide significant value to the business from the sharing of knowledge, technology, and ideas across BAE Systems, and can originate from within the company, a partner organization, or an external company. Evaluation criteria include level and effect of benefits, value to the customer, applicability across the company, potential for competitive advantage, and corporate responsibility.

“The Type 26 program is a centerpiece of the Royal Navy’s future and the ships BAE Systems builds will be a critical component of the UK’s national defense,” said Dan Pfeifle, Exostar’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “We are fully-committed to working together with the Naval Ships organization to ensure their success through the duration of the program, and we are pleased to have helped their team achieve the recognition they deserve from the company.”

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