Partnership to Deliver Integrated e-Sourcing

Burlington, MA — March 25, 2003 — Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S., LLC (CGE&Y), a management and IT consulting firm, this week announced it would partner with strategic sourcing provider Emptoris Inc. for its Best Practice Packs, which, according to the provider, help companies start their e-sourcing programs and improve their speed-to-value.

Specifically for CGE&Y, the Packs will provide process, content and service support for sourcing specific commodity categories. They will also increase speed-to-category, enable repeatable/measurable sourcing programs and provide a baseline of documents and processes.

In addition to providing specific content for the Best Practice Packs, CGE&Y offered standard services to customize and configure the packs to customers' specific sourcing program requirements. Standard services include assistance with deployment planning, e-sourcing strategy and system roll out.

Ken Gottesman, vice president of Sourcing and e-Procurement at CGE&Y, said the Best Practice Packs are unique in that the offering is first-to-market in delivering category-specific domain knowledge as an integrated part of an e-sourcing suite. "Through our alliance with Emptoris, we can provide companies with sourcing software and services in order to institutionalize sourcing best practices across the enterprise," he said. "Companies employing the Best Practice Packs will be able to deploy these best practices across a wide range of categories, resulting in efficiencies throughout the sourcing process."