MURRAY HILL, N.J., and COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Lucent Technologies and Alliente, an e-procurement solutions provider for global businesses, announced a new strategic relationship to manage Lucent's indirect e-procurement services.
As part of the agreement, Lucent will utilize Alliente's end-to-end, automated procurement services to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of purchasing indirect goods, which include office supplies and furniture, travel services, and power and energy supplies.
As a cornerstone customer, the telecommunications giant will receive a minority stake in privately held Alliente. Lucent will also transfer approximately 60 employees with extensive procurement and travel services experience to their new partner. These professionals will augment Alliente's workforce to support customer service, procurement management and supplier relationships.
"Lucent's work with Alliente is another way the company is streamlining its operations and concentrating its resources on what it does best -- building the broadband and mobile Internet," said Jose Mejia, Lucent's chief supply officer. "With this agreement, we are also fostering and investing in an exciting new e-commerce application that will help drive the demand for next-generation broadband networks."
Alliente uses Web-based applications to provide customized e-procurement services, including implementation, consulting, catalog order management, non-catalog procurement, supplier management and e-enablement, and payment services. With these activities managed by Alliente, Lucent will be able to focus more resources on strategically delivering products and systems to their customers.
Lucent has been taking an aggressive approach to its online procurement and supply chain initiatives in the last year, including using an Ariba technology platform. Because Alliente has deep experience working with Ariba and servicing the procurement requirements of large, global companies, the transition of e-procurement services is expected to be quick and painless.
"Working with Alliente now allows us to marry our global procurement expertise and vast supply demands with Alliente's leadership in Web-based, e-procurement systems and services," Mejia continued. "Alliente has both the infrastructure and the ability to provide the level of service necessary to meet our needs for cost reductions and increased efficiency."
For Alliente, the agreement adds another global technology leader to its customer list and builds the company's capacity to effectively manage the best outcome for their customers in significant service areas, such as global corporate travel.
Launched by former Hewlett-Packard company executives in February, Alliente has capitalized on its experience as e-procurement specialists to effectively allow large companies to concentrate on more strategic, core business processes. For its customers, Alliente manages and automates the complete indirect procurement process, concentrating on increasing buying efficiencies, automating transactions, increasing purchasing power, providing tracking mechanisms to manage consumption and billing, and maintaining key relationships with approved suppliers. Alliente currently has a schedule in place to provide e-procurement solutions to approximately 250,000 global users in 50 countries.
