Atlanta — March 18, 2003 — Following a four-month pilot program, Newell Rubbermaid, a global marketer of consumer products with sales of over $7 billion in 2002, has signed a multi-year agreement with Procuri, a provider of strategic sourcing tools and services.
Paul Box, group vice president of purchasing for Newell Rubbermaid, led an evaluation of sourcing solutions aimed at bringing greater efficiency to its current processes. Several potential providers were considered, and Newell Rubbermaid selected Procuri for a four-month pilot program. During the pilot, a number of Internet sourcing events in a variety of spend categories were conducted.
"We wanted to equip our purchasing team with a strategic, self-service tool that was scalable and easy-to-use to accommodate our sourcing managers' different commodity needs and sourcing experiences," said Box. "The Procuri solution allows us to manage and control the online negotiations' process, thus enabling us to tailor it to fit our various requirements."
The Amerock, Shur-Line, Levolor Kirsch, Graco, Little Tikes and American Tool divisions used the tool during the pilot program and, because of the new multi-year agreement, the company has plans to train additional purchasing professionals on Procuri 4.0 to help ensure it becomes a standard practice across the corporation.
"The most compelling aspect of the Procuri tool is its ability to compress our time-to-savings," added Box. "Procuri enables us to conduct complex Internet negotiations across a portfolio of suppliers in a very short timeframe, speeding the delivery of pricing information and ultimately cost savings. Online tools, such as Procuri 4.0, and new corporate processes will assist us in hitting our companywide savings goals head on and to develop best practices across our entire organization."
Procuri offers Web-based software to automate the strategic sourcing process, including collaboration and communication, complex supplier negotiations and real-time decision analysis.
"By implementing sourcing solutions on a global basis, companies can realize significant savings across its enterprise in many different spend categories," said Mark F. Morel, Sr., Procuri's president and chief executive officer. "Newell Rubbermaid has taken advantage of our global capabilities and is able to successfully utilize our solutions to realize significant savings."
