Tuesday 27th March, 2012

Ann Oka, Sr. Vice President  Supply Management, Sodexo Inc. and Tony Tocco, CIO, IS&T, Sodexo Inc. will take centre stage at Ariba LIVE 2012, to share the story of their successful implementation of The Market Connection, a revolutionary procurement system powered by Ariba.The announcement of  the latest addition to its blue-chip roster of speakers set to take the stage at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas adds extra weight to an already powerful event.

Sodexo is a leading provider of Quality of Daily Life Solutions to business, government, health care and educational organisations. Partnering with Ariba, Sodexo sought a transformative procurement solution that provided complete transparency to manage spend throughout the entire supply chain.

 “Supply chain transformation takes more than just good ideas. It requires a solid strategy and tight alignment between business and IT leaders,” said Oka. During their presentation, Oka and Tocco will outline how they were able to tame the challenges of implementing a complex supply chain procurement application. This was accomplished through a combination of innovative supply network vision, well-aligned execution and collaborative partnership between Procurement and IT.

“From day one, there was a real sense of trust and respect for what everyone brought to the table. That made collaborating easy because people felt valued for what they knew,” said Tocco. “With collaboration, you’re able to explore alternatives so you get to the best answer.  As a result, we were able to develop The Market Connection – a company-wide e-procurement system which is a mission-critical system for an organisation as large and far reaching as Sodexo.”

Powered by Ariba® Procure-to-Pay™, Sodexo created a revolutionary e-procurement system that allows it to efficiently track and manage orders and spend across more than 5,700 business units. Known as The Market Connection, the system is the first of its kind in the foodservice industry and enables Sodexo to drive a best-in-class procure-to-pay process. Through The Market Connection, Sodexo is driving savings and efficiencies that positively impact Sodexo, the clients they serve and the manufacturer and distributor partnerships they maintain.

The heart of Ariba’s Procurement solution, Ariba Procure-To-Pay combines the functionality of Ariba Buyer™, Ariba Invoice™, Ariba Settlement™ and Ariba Analysis™ in a single, integrated solution to help companies automate, improve, control and monitor procurement to realise immediate process efficiencies and cost savings.

The technology is used to support all procurement activity across Sodexo’s foodservice business and is the second most-used application within the company. More than $3.8 billion in spend and over 2.2 million orders have been processed through The Market Connection which is used by over 12,000 enabled users. Approximately 10,000 invoices are processed through The Market Connection daily Monday - Saturday.

“Three years ago, Sodexo made a bold move to completely automate procurement,” said Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing Officer, Ariba. “With thousands of buyers and transactions, it was a daunting task. But by implementing an innovative set of technology-based tools to manage its procure-to-order process, Sodexo has succeeded.”