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PNet Implementation Featured in Purchasing Magazine The March 2, 2006 edition of Purchasing Magazine featured Anders Lillevik at Citizens Bank and their PNet Procure-to-Pay implementation which resulted in a 500% ROI. Red Bank, NJ March 2, 2006 – Purchasing Magazine recently featured Citizens Bank in “Buying at a Financial Services Company”. Excerpts from the article include: E-procurement as a cornerstone To control spending throughout the organization, Lillevik and his team implemented a centralized e-procurement system*. In the past, the sourcing organization bought mainly through supplier websites, faxing purchase orders or making telephone orders. With such diverse order placement methods, the overall spend was difficult to track and control and the back-end processing of paying its supplier was inefficient. “The business case for building a centralized e-procurement system was built by targeting a certain percentage in savings for each category,” says Lillevik. Upon implementation, enabled vendors were prepared to stop taking orders over any channel other than through an online purchase order. Strategic sourcing made it clear that any order with a system-generated PO would not be paid. Accounts payable was also prepared to flag any controlled spend items that were not ordered through the official channel. Results show that by investing in e-procurement, it took roughly two months for the average office supplies spend to drop 30%. Citizens was able to reduct office spend by close to 50% in less than a year. This constitutes 500% ROI on the cost of implementing e-procurement. For example, one particular facilities service generated in excess of 3,000 paper invoices with over 120 vendors per year. Citizens now buys the same service with improved service levels and 5% savings in overall price with less than 50 electronic invoices per year. Strategic sourcing has since identified more than 10 other areas that could be re-engineered to provide a better service for lower cost and overhead. Strategic sourcing has about 60 actively managed suppliers in the supplier relationship management program today. Citizens has consolidated down to a single office products supplier. There are a total of 32 employees in strategic sourcing and corporate services. There are no traditional “buyers” on Lillevik’s team. He says that his team sets standards so users can requisition using the e-procurement systems and doesn’t have to do the “three bids and one buy”. All transactions that have standards dedicated to them are done completely “touchless” without the involvement of any sourcing staff. Lillevik continues to receive support from the front line executives. Meanwhile, strategic sourcing has gained a tremendous amount of traction in the past 18 months that the group has been in place at the bank. The complete article may be seen at: http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA6310779.html *Citizens uses PNet Procure-to-Pay software, www.purchasingnet.com About PurchasingNet, Inc. PurchasingNet, Inc. is a leading provider of Web-based eProcurement and ePayables software to mid- and large-sized companies. The company has over 1,400 customers in Financial Services, Retail/Consumer Products, Professional Services, Media/Publishing and a variety of other industries. Founded in 1983, PurchasingNet has focused exclusively on the development and implementation of Procurement and Payables applications since inception. In addition to building an extensive, blue-chip client base, PurchasingNet possesses deep domain expertise in Purchasing and Payables business processes. The average length of service at PurchasingNet is 8 years per employee. PurchasingNet’s customers include Countrywide Financial, US Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, American Financial Group, Liz Claiborne, HBO, EarthLink, Black & Decker, Kroger, and General Mills.
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