Leading French mobile phone and Internet service provider leverages company’s cloud-based solutions to drive more efficient sourcing process, deliver savings

Tuesday, 8 November 2011

With more than 60 buyers across five purchasing departments, sourcing goods and services is a complicated task at Bouygues Telecom, a leading French mobile phone and Internet service provider.

But it’s becoming easier. That’s because Bouygues Telecom, like an increasing number of companies around the world, is leveraging cloud-based technologies from Ariba, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARBA), the leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions, to streamline and enhance its procurement process in ways that deliver savings and efficiencies.

“Competition in the telecommunications industry is extremely intense and in order to gain advantage, we must diligently manage our costs and our supply base,” said Olivier Veilhan, IT Purchasing Manager, Bouygues Telecom. “Ariba’s on-demand solutions provide us with a unique set of tools that enable us to actively manage our spend and our relationships with key trading partners, and ultimately, to improve our performance and profits.”

Bouygues Telecom has been using Ariba’s cloud-based solutions since 2010 when it implemented Ariba Sourcing™ as its platform for procuring both direct materials and indirect goods and services. Delivered on-demand, Ariba Sourcing helps companies improve the complete sourcing lifecycle – from supplier discovery and negotiation to award optimisation and savings tracking.

In conjunction with Ariba Sourcing, the Bouygues Telecom team has recently begun using Ariba Discovery™, a next-generation business matching service designed to help buyers and sellers connect and collaborate more efficiently, to further enhance its sourcing activities and the results that they deliver.

“With Ariba Discovery™, we can quickly find new partners who can deliver the right goods and services and consequently extend the number of suppliers consulted” Veilhan said.

To manage its partners, Bouygues Telecom leverages Ariba Supplier Information Management™, a unique combination of technology, expertise and services that helps companies quickly identify and assess new sources of supply, rapidly on board approved suppliers, gain a 360-degree view of supplier information and drive continuous corrective actions and improvements across the supply chain.

“Supply chain complexity is often associated with large multinational manufacturers, but service providers like Bouygues Telecom have global and complex supply chains that require agile and flexible solutions to manage as well,” said Ted Kondis, Vice President and EMEA General Manager, Ariba. “With Ariba, the company has the tools it needs to quickly and easily discover, connect and collaborate with key partners and drive a standard, best-practice process for procurement that drives cost reductions and productivity improvements across its operations.”