ThomasRegional.com and MFG.com Co-brand Their Leading Industrial eMarketplaces
New Service - CustomQuote - Delivers E-Commerce Opportunities For Companies Buying and Selling Custom Manufacturing Services
New York, NY., - September 11, 2000 - Thomas Regional Directory Company, the leading online industrial marketplace serving the middle-market business community, today announced it has partnered with MFG.com, Inc. (Atlanta, GA) to create a new co-branded service delivering e-commerce RFQ opportunities for companies buying and selling custom manufacturing services. The service, called CustomQuote at www.ThomasRegional.com, strategically combines Thomas Regional's e-commerce web site for industrial sourcing and purchasing with MFG.com's innovative Web-based marketplace connecting suppliers and buyers of custom manufacturing services.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, custom manufacturing accounts for 17 percent of the gross domestic product and is on the rise. To serve this market, CustomQuote will integrate Thomas Regional's expansive database in the industrial supply community, with MFG.com's exclusive Collaborative Procurement Management (CPM) system.
MFG.com's innovative CPM technology automates conventional procurement practices, streamlines the private quoting process, and creates a highly efficient e-marketplace for buyer-seller transactions and collaboration. "CustomQuote provides an exciting new avenue of expanded e-commerce to the industrial community," said George Short, publisher of electronic products for Thomas Regional. "A great deal of industrial sourcing activity relates to requests for custom products - not off-the-shelf, commodity-type items. Our co-branded service combines ThomasRegional.com's active marketplace of buyers and sellers with the interactive and automated RFQ process provided by MFG.com." "
Our partnership with Thomas Regional leverages the strengths of both companies to provide solution-level services that will set the standard in custom manufacturing e-procurement," said Mitch Free, president of MFG.com. "Because we serve a common audience, our collaboration on CustomQuote will transform traditional purchasing into a digital environment featuring greater automation and affordability, ease of use, and fast track procurement.
The infrastructure of our technology has been designed to support future advancements and customer-driven enhancements." Marketing, branding and selling by ThomasRegional.com will help generate additional e-commerce traffic for the MFG.com service. The MFG.com marketplace will receive requests for quotations (RFQs) posted both by Thomas Regional users as well as Thomas Regional's alliance channels. In a reciprocal arrangement, Thomas Regional will provide its industrial product and company information to MFG.com.
About Thomas Regional
Thomas Regional Directory Company (www.ThomasRegional.com) is a dominant online industrial marketplace and a leading provider of business-to-business information to the regional industrial communities of North America. Leveraging the power of the Internet, ThomasRegional.com enables industrial buyers to source, initiate and complete transactions quickly and easily online. Its flagship information products reach more than 1,500,000 industrial buyers - via the Web, CD-ROM and in print. ThomasRegional.com provides company information on more than 520,000 middle-market industrial distributors, manufacturers and service companies in 6,000 product and service categories. In 2000, Thomas Regional.com was named as one of Forbes Magazine's "Best of the Web B2B Sites" and was also selected as one of Information Week's "Web Sites of the Week." Thomas Regional has been headquartered in New York City for more than 25 years.
About MFG.com
MFG.com is the largest global online marketplace for the manufacturing industry. MFG.com instantly and intelligently matches sourcing professionals and engineers with suppliers who have the right expertise and capacity to manufacture parts and tooling on demand in accordance with their engineering drawings and CAD files. MFG.com's on-demand service is consolidating the once- fragmented world of manufacturing into an efficient marketplace, enabling products to be sourced and built more easily, quickly, inexpensively, and at higher quality levels. For more information, please visit http://www.MFG.com.
About MFG.com
MFG.com is the largest global online marketplace for the manufacturing industry. MFG.com instantly and intelligently matches sourcing professionals and engineers with suppliers who have the right expertise and capacity to manufacture parts and tooling on demand in accordance with their engineering drawings and CAD files. MFG.com's on-demand service is consolidating the once- fragmented world of manufacturing into an efficient marketplace, enabling products to be sourced and built more easily, quickly, inexpensively, and at higher quality levels. For more information, please visit http://www.MFG.com.