Comarch initiates activity in the Far East

Comarch ECOD, the well-known and increasingly widely-used platform for the transmission of e-invoices between retail chains and producers, is making its Asian debut with the opening of offices in Shanghai, China and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Following the domestic market in Poland, and markets in Central and Southern Europe, Russia and Ukraine, this will be the fourth strategic territory that Comarch’s ECOD platform will conduct e-business for local retail chains. ECOD was launched in Poland in 2001 and has taken huge strides forward. Now the orders for nearly all goods available in supermarkets in Poland as well as in fourteen other countries are sent via the EDI Platform in Comarch’s Data Center in Kraków. Now it’s the Far East’s turn: a product that a Chinese consumer takes off the supermarket shelf will have been ordered electronically using Comarch technology. To make this possible, the company has prepared both Chinese and Vietnamese versions of the popular platform. It also is employing local specialists for both IT and call center posts and opening a local data center in China.

At the beginning, the facilities in China and Vietnam will be used by current Comarch ECOD customers, including some of the largest retail chains in Western Europe. It is expected that the first documents will be transmitted in mid 2009. The company then plans to gradually connect further retail chains to the system: in particular local chains in China and Vietnam.

Jacek Mikuś, Comarch Consulting Center Director, commented, ‘ECOD in Asia is an important event for the product itself. It demonstrates the scale and reach of our skills and abilities and is truly something to make one stop, think and even marvel. After all, you do not open an office on the other side of the Earth just like that. This is important evidence for companies that Comarch is a serious global business partner for the long haul.’