Sailing into the US

New Zealand global procurement company Unimarket is in the process of finalising a move to Annapolis, Maryland in the United States, where it plans to hire 100 new employees by 2011. Founder and chief executive officer Scott Blackwood explains how his company’s technology helps the education sector while Unimarket president Kurt Black runs the program from a laptop. Blackwood says the company has moved after successfully piloting its software in Auckland. The company’s software aims to create supply-chain efficiencies for the education sector. Blackwood built a company with software that is reminiscent of Amazon.com: It eliminates the need for universities and schools to hire an in-house staff to maintain supplier product and pricing information. The traditional model for e-procurement software requires businesses and universities to purchase software licenses and hardware and then hire a staff to support it. Unimarket also has offices in Melbourne.