Seeking Simplicity and Efficiency... "Our challenge is to enable property managers to do their jobs differently without making their lives more difficult." That's Scott Cardais, Senior Vice President, Product Development, at AvidXchange discussing e-purchasing. And isn't that also our collective challenge? How can we make change easier? Simplify my life. Please!

After all, as Cardais points out, nothing is quite so simple as picking up the phone and saying to a supplier, "Hey, Sally, please send me three more widgets." But electronically, it's all downhill from here. (I'm joking.) To smooth the transition to an electronic system, AvidXchange enables property owners to do business locally with existing vendors -- AvidBid (for conducting online bidding), AvidBuy (for the requisitioning process), and AvidPay (for electronic invoicing).

AvidXchange is not a middleman between owners and suppliers. You continue to deal directly with your traditional vendors. AvidXchange software simply provides the software to connect the two of you. The cost of AvidXchange is roughly $0.03 per square foot the first year and $0.01 per square foot per year after. According to Cardais, all you need to save is 3% of the hard cost of your goods and services in the first year in order to recoup your investment.

Cardais argues that, in the current economic environment, any new business process must pay for itself with real cost savings, not reductions in "soft costs" like "administrative efficiencies." Cardais states that customers normally receive a much quicker payback than twelve months, frequently with savings of 10-20%. AvidXchange customers include Carramerica, Mills Corporation, and Transwestern with active operations in Charlotte (its headquarters), Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City.

--Peter Pike