Sabre Cuts Contractor Costs by Outsourcing E-procurement

Software Magazine, Dec, 2000 by Julie Lavallee

Managing 2,200 contractors can put a lot of stress on internal processes. Just ask Sabre, a leader in information technology for the travel and transportation industry. The company s invoice staff was inundated with paperwork, and the finance department had difficulty tracking expenses. Sabre wanted to establish quality control. The solution: Outsourcing.

"We had no process in place to measure costs, or to compare contractors," says Cathy Carroll, manager for Sabre Inc., based in Fort Worth, Texas. "The recruitment staff was overwhelmed with the manual process. Contractors were being paid late. We needed to align our processes with our corporate goals."

Sabre decided to search for a human capital management firm, which led them to Chimes. Based in Mountain Lakes, N.J., Chimes is a provider of e-procurement solutions for human resource acquisition and management. Sabre outsourced the management and procurement of its contractors.

Sabre was impressed by the design, the flexibility to meet its needs, and the significant cost savings that Chimes offered. Chimes was able to implement the solution in 30 days. "With a Chimes Web-enabled interface, we were able to manage our information flow, maintain corporate policies, and establish quality control," says Carroll.

The product, ChimeSource, enables suppliers to submit requests directly to Chimes. Chimes then evaluates the skill and the cost of the contractors. The centralized management provides the opportunity for managers to check the status and provide feedback. It also enables contract suppliers to submit candidates and view performance.

"We were able to start tracking metrics. This gave us leverage in reducing the internal head count, initiating discounts, and having better rates," Carroll said in a keynote speech at the Strategic IT Staffing Conference held recently by the Intermedia Group, a research firm based in Westborough, Mass.

The results were impressive. "We have seen a 5% decrease in the amount spent on contractors. We expect savings of $5 million by 2001," she says.

Chimes customers include: Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose Calif.; Ariba, Mountain View, Calif.; and Lehman Brothers, New York City.