Plano, TX — June 10, 2003 — Grocer A&P has signed up to use e-sourcing technologies and services from A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions in a bid to cut costs.
A&P, formally known as the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., operates about 680 stores in 11 states, the District of Columbia and Ontario, Canada.
The company's contract with A.T. Kearney includes access to the eBreviate request for proposal (RFP) and auction technologies, as well as to the Supply Market Solutions tool, a Web-based resource for intellectual capital, content and methodologies on strategic sourcing.
"We are privileged to be working with a company like A&P, whose goal is to use our technologies to cut costs and improve their profits," said Michael Sorensen, vice-president of worldwide sales and marketing for A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions.
Sorensen said that in the early days of e-sourcing, some retail customers — and particularly those that sold perishable goods — had difficulty seeing how they could use the technologies to lower their costs and hence were slower in adopting them.
"A&P is joining a group of clients who now see the impact that strategic sourcing tools can have on their bottom line," Sorensen concluded.
A recent report from Aberdeen Group suggested that companies involving their sourcing teams and suppliers in the earliest stages of product design can see significant savings compared to enterprises that bring their supply side into design later in the process. Read the May 16, 2003, iSourceonline story.
For more information on the e-sourcing market, see the Global Enabled Supply and Demand Chain Series article "Sourcing" in the February/March 2003 issue of iSource Business.
