Belgium: InBev chooses Emptoris as sourcing and spend visibility platform

Global beverage brewer InBev has selected Emptoris as its spend analysis, sourcing and contract management solution provider in Europe, the solution provider has announced February 1.

InBev employs some 85,000 people, running operations in over 30 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. In 2005, InBev realized 11.7 billion euro revenue. InBev’s strategy is to strengthen its local platforms by building significant positions in the world's major beer markets through organic growth, world-class efficiency, targeted external growth, and by putting consumers first. InBev has a portfolio of more than 200 brands, including Stella Artois®, Brahma®, Beck’s®, Leffe® and Skol® - the third-largest selling beer brand in the world.

InBev has deployed Emptoris’ spend visibility solution in Western Europe which allows them to track who, when and where every euro going out of InBev is spent. This allows InBev’s buyers to get greater spend control while identifying opportunities and driving spend concentration throughout geographies and different purchasing categories. Building on a series of successful E-auctions in 2005, InBev also decided to expand the use of the E-sourcing tool and systematically run all negotiations on-line, in a more efficient, transparent and effective way. This allowed InBev Procurement to rapidly gain coverage in spend areas where Procurement had low or no involvement before, realizing substantial savings. Further, InBev used Emptoris’ contract management solution to build a central repository for signed agreements and to simplify existing contracting processes ensuring early legal involvement in the negotiations while avoiding administration as much as possible. Finally, InBev enforced and revisited purchasing ordering processes where necessary in order to improve employee compliance to contracted deals and ordering from preferred vendors.

“Following our merger, we are, in many ways, a new company and we have developed quite visionary goals for our procurement operations. Building on 2005 results, we realized a step change in 2006 in obtaining benefits through disciplined execution of best-in-class purchasing processes enabled by a truly integrated, global software platform,” said Tom De Kegel, Director of Global Procurement at InBev. “To increase sourcing efficiency and drive buyer adoption and alignment across geographies, we envisioned to employ only one application combining spend insights with E-sourcing and contract management. That is in large part why we selected Emptoris. Emptoris offers us the user-friendly, web-enabled integrated suite in multiple languages we require, with proven global functionality and deployments.”

Global 2000 companies have used Emptoris solutions to analyze over $8 trillion of spend, to source over $110 billion of products and services, to manage contracts totaling over $65 billion, and to deliver approximately $22 billion in bottom line savings.

“Emptoris solutions are designed to meet the specific demands of global companies,” said Avner Schneur, Emptoris' chief executive officer. “And our track record of success and deployments in spend analysis, sourcing and contract management at Global 2000 organizations is unmatched.”

About InBev
InBev is a publicly traded company (Euronext: INB) based in Leuven, Belgium. The company's origins date back to 1366, and today it is the leading global brewer by volume. InBev’s strategy is to strengthen its local platforms by building significant positions in the world's major beer markets through organic growth, world-class efficiency, targeted external growth, and by putting consumers first. InBev has a portfolio of more than 200 brands, including Stella Artois®, Brahma®, Beck’s®, Leffe® and Skol® - the third-largest selling beer brand in the world. InBev employs some 85 000 people, running operations in over 30 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. In 2005, InBev realized 11.7 billion euro of revenue.

About Emptoris
Emptoris is the world leader in innovative supply and contract management software solutions that empower enterprises to realize best value and accelerate profitable growth. Emptoris solutions are used by successful Global 2000 companies in every industry. Customers include American Express, Bank of America, Boeing, Dow Corning, GlaxoSmithKline, Motorola, Owens Corning, Samsung America, and Toro.

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