Mountain View, CA January 16, 2003 Metal tooling company Kennametal has finished the initial deployment of a hosted spend management solution from provider Ketera Technologies as its Web-based e-procurement platform.
Latrobe, Pa.-based Kennametal is a $1.8 billion provider of tooling, metalworking and advanced materials solutions. The company contracted with Ketera to implement the spend management service in August 2002, around the same time that the provider changed its name from MarketMile to its new moniker (see related story).
Kennametal went live with a pilot solution within 45 days of the initial kickoff meeting, deploying the Procurement and Supplier Enablement components of the provider's Spend Management solution. Within 90 days Kennametal and Ketera enabled 10 suppliers and more than 350 end-users across 65 locations, and further plans call for providing more than 700 end users with access to 30 suppliers within 18 months.
James Cebula, director of global purchasing for Kennametal, said the metals company selected the hosted Ketera solution in part for its rapid rollout capabilities. "We wanted a spend management solution that could be deployed quickly, with limited end user training and without the implementation obstacles associated with enterprise software," said Cebula. "Ketera's solution, with its 'on demand' delivery model, addressed our requirements perfectly."
Cebula added that some of the other solutions Kennametal considered potentially had "hidden" costs associated with implementing software behind the company's firewall. "We didn't want the headaches and potential delays associated with a software implementation," he said.
Ketera's Spend Management Solution is comprised of six modules targeting spend analysis, sourcing, procurement, payment and reconciliation, and supplier enablement.
