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The Company
Founded in Boston, MA, Au Bon Pain (www.aubonpain.com) has become one of the leading
bakery café chains in the world, with more than 200 locations in the
United States, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. ABP is a leader in many
trade channels from urban office buildings to airports, hospitals and
suburbs.
The problem
ABP faced many of the same problems most mid-sized restaurant chains do:
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They were worried that
their systems didn’t allow them to detect pricing irregularities. |
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They felt they weren’t
sufficiently informed to negotiate from a position of strength with
their manufacturers and |
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They were unable to track
individual product sales to the extent they required. |
The solution
Au Bon Pain turned to Tibersoft for help with the understanding that
choosing the solution was a strategic decision. As former CEO Frank
Guidara put it at the time, “We’re making money pennies at a time. To say
that corporate software purchases need to be carefully aligned to the
goals of the business is an understatement.”
The results
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In the first few months of
rolling out Tibersoft IQ, ABP found
$59,000 in price discrepancies. |
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With contract deals loaded
into the system, price compliance was put on auto-pilot, requiring
intervention only when exception errors were queued by the system. |
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Strategically, ABP
purchasing started using TiBersoft IQ to prep for
manufacturer negotiations. |
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ABP purchasing examined
their poultry category and generated new consolidation strategies,
resulting in a new poultry deal that saved $228,000 in one year. |
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Rebate submissions were
automated, reducing processing time from three weeks to one day. |
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Purchasing now had the
flexibility to accept rebates or off-invoice deviations within their
deals, increasing their flexibility to do the best deal possible. |
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The benefits for Au Bon Pain |
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Found $59,000 in pricing errors in the
first month |
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Inked new poultry deal saving $228,000 |
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