Case Study: Paper Exchange

Until recently, the estimated $500 billion a year in sales global pulp, paper, and packaging industry did not have a centralized marketplace that enabled buyers and sellers to conduct online purchasing transactions and monitor prices and trends. That’s when Paper Exchange was launched with the mission to support the industry by providing an online marketplace.

As customers increasingly relied on the site as a key business tool, Paper Exchange needed to communicate privacy and integrity of transaction data. This was a concern of potential customers, and a key building block of the Paper Exchange value proposition.

To protect client privacy and anonymity, Paper Exchange developed innovative tools to safeguard the confidentiality of its members’ information and also enable members to control who can view their information online, and what information they can view. To assure clients that all site processes operate at the specified standards, Paper Exchange opted to get a respected, independent perspective. “We wanted to independently review our business practices, from our public website to our back end processes,” says Carl Katzeff, CTO of Paper Exchange. They chose CyberProcess Certification by EY.

Now with over 5000 members internationally, including industry heavyweights and strategic alliance partners such as International Paper and Staples, Paper Exchange believes it has set the standard for online marketplaces. “It’s part of who we are,” Katzef says of their high standards of security, reliability, and availability. In these terms, such standards are not just an advantage—they’re a requirement.