Saga selects Marketingunity e-procurement module

Saga has implemented Marketingunity's Procurement Manager software, which is expected to drive cost and administration savings on procurement services.

Saga anticipates that the new system will bring cost savings on material and services procurement, as well as through increased employee productivity, better supplier management and comprehensive management reporting.

Procurement Manager is part of Marketingunity's web-based, collaborative software suit designed to support best practice in marketing and procurement.

Marketingunity is already used by the AA and following its entry into the Acromas Group - which Saga is also part of - its enthusiasm for the system persuaded Saga to look into using it for itself.

Saga identified the benefits it would deliver, and implemented it initially for print procurement.

This will be followed by other categories, beginning with IT hardware, leading to Procurement Manager becoming the Saga standard e-procurement platform.

David Bruce, head of group procurement at Acromas Group, said: 'The Marketingunity solution is very intelligent.

'It implements a "best practice" procurement system that is uniform, sustainable and standardised across the business.

'It incorporates a comprehensive database of buying history, which gives us a single point of control for procurement.

'It also provides comprehensive management reporting which will identify ongoing opportunities for savings,' he added.

As to why the system was selected, Bruce said: 'It has a clear competitive edge in a number of areas: it offers a world-class procurement system at a fraction of the cost of its competitors; it is fast to implement and use; and it can manage products that generic e-procurement solutions cannot.

'They are fine for commodity products that can be pre-priced and bought through catalogues.

'However, they fall down on bespoke products such as print and IT hardware, that have so many combinations of features that they cannot be put in a catalogue.

'Marketingunity has specification templates that overcome that limitation,' he added.

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