Spend data management product to help streamline supplier base
Santa Clara, CA — July 21, 2003 — Zycus Inc., a provider of enterprise spend data management (SDM) solutions, today announced that consumer products company Unilever Inc. has selected Zycus to kick-off a business initiative that will give Unilever visibility into indirect spend across its manufacturing plants in the United States.
Unilever said it plans to reduce the total cost of externally purchased materials, goods and services, while maintaining or improving upon the relationship and service quality with its suppliers. The company's existing IT systems allowed for capture and analyses of spend only at a very top level.
With the new SDM solution, Unilever hopes to have more detailed insight into its spend landscape, with data classified at the supplier, commodity and plant level, as well as automate the spend analysis process so it can be done on an ongoing basis.
Upon successful completion of the first phase of the project, which will involve historical spend analysis for 13 manufacturing plants, Unilever said it plans to roll-out the UNSPSC-based solution across the remaining manufacturing plants in the United States.
UNSPSC (United Nations Standard Products and Services Code), a worldwide classification system developed in 1998 by the United Nations and Dun & Bradstreet, is an open, global electronic commerce standard that provides a logical framework for classifying goods and services. UNSPSC is a global standard and freely available to the public with no copyright protection issues, which has led to its widespread adoption all around the world.
"By using AutoClass we are able to unlock information about our MRO [materials, repair and operations] spend, which is already buried in our transaction systems,Ó said David Lapish, head of Unilever's Information Management Team. "The information is of a depth that our Supply Management group has not had available before. It will enable us to realize savings from avoiding unnecessary purchases and by concentrating spend with preferred suppliers."
