More than USD10 billion saved - Ten years after Ariba pioneered e-sourcing, manufacturers are seeing the value

摘要

Jim Polak, director of general purchasing at Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries, never saw himself as a technology visionary. But it appears that's exactly what he was a decade ago, when he signed a contract for a new e-procurement application from a start-up vendor called Ariba. Today, Polak breathes easy when talking about the savings PPG reaps from a set of applications that has expanded over the years to cover a series of processes Ariba now refers to as spend management. He also says a lot more than the Ariba applications has changed in the past 10 years. "I felt like I had a bulls-eye painted on my back," Polak says about signing that initial agreement. "About half the relevant people within PPG were against the idea of going with Ariba. That made it difficult to keep morale up, and keep the momentum [on the transformation to e-procurement] going. It wasn't until the savings started rolling in that the pressure came off."