Pittsburgh — May 27, 2003 — French telecoms company Alcatel has inked a deal for e-sourcing and supply management solutions with U.S. provider FreeMarkets in a bid to lower its costs and reduce supply risk.
Alcatel provides telecommunications network equipment along with applications and network services. The company, which operates in more than 130 countries, had 2002 sales of about $19.5 billion at current exchange rates.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel will implement FreeMarkets' solutions within its corporate purchasing and sourcing department.
Solutions to be deployed include FreeMarkets ES, a platform for managing requirements, supplier relationships, sourcing, decisions and contracts, among other things; QS, a negotiation application for sourcing projects; and FullSource, a set of services around various spend categories.
"Among the key objectives for Alcatel in 2003 were to downsize our cost base and, at the same time, to maintain technological leadership," said Raymond Polle, president of corporate purchasing and sourcing of Alcatel. "FreeMarkets was an integral part of our efforts to achieve these goals, and we are pleased today to be extending our relationship with them."
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.
