RampRate Sourcing Advisory Services Saves Audible Cost and Risk in Record Time

RampRate, Inc., the authority on Information Technology Outsourcing that provides advisory and strategic research services, announced that Audible, the Internet's leading provider of spoken audio entertainment, information and educational programming, engaged RampRate to audit the company's existing co-location services and procure new services to meet core business objectives. By working with RampRate, Audible successfully aligned its IT sourcing agreements with market standards for best practices and pricing. As a result, Audible strengthened its current vendor relationships while significantly reducing co-location fees and improving the contractual provisions.

"We needed to quickly review our current co-location services to ensure we had the right vendor and infrastructure in place," said Brian Duddy, vice president of shared services, Audible.com. "RampRate's comprehensive approach to assessing our needs and its ability to provide extensive analysis on other options in the market enabled us to make our sourcing decisions affordably and in record time. As a result, Audible was able to save 46 percent in co-location fees, accelerate our time to market and gain greater control over our infrastructure as customer requirements and service levels evolve."

Audible had a need to examine its existing co-location services to assess whether it could better meet IT needs and customer requirements. The company selected RampRate based upon its proven ability to save businesses both time and money on IT services while building balanced long-term vendor relationships. RampRate was able to evaluate Audible's business-critical needs and recommend options within two weeks, including needs analysis, two rounds of vendor quotes, and a thorough due diligence on final vendor selection.

The RampRate team of seasoned IT sourcing experts quickly evaluated Audible's current engagement against market standards for best practices and best pricing by using RampRate's proprietary SPY Index(TM) (Service Provider Intelligence Index) -- an integrated data bank of cost, service level and vendor profiles compiled through strategic partnerships and hundreds of end user interviews. Within 48 hours, RampRate's sourcing experts used the SPY Index to identify a seven-figure gap between market prices and the current offer for co-location services, and to highlight critical contractual parameters of the offer that would negatively impact the long-term stability of the Audible-vendor relationship.

With this benchmark, Audible decided to re-enter the RFP process. RampRate's Vendor Partner Program afforded fast access to vendors capable of delivering against Audible's requirements. The revised RFP process was seven days from beginning to end, and included the installed vendor. Audible was able to evaluate three strong options from highly qualified vendors. When the company decided to continue with its current vendor, Audible, RampRate, and the vendor worked together to build a contract that was balanced, aligned with market standards, and met Audible's long-term needs. By identifying a collaboration strategy with RampRate, the vendor was able to not only retain the client in the face of stiff competition, but also develop a stronger partnership with Audible. 88% of RampRate's proposed service terms reflecting industry best practices were accepted, assuring that any vendor business or organizational changes would not impact service quality.

"Our data-driven approach to IT sourcing consistently saves our customers an average of 30 percent or more," said Tony Greenberg, CEO of RampRate. "By leveraging our sophisticated vendor value chain approach, we were able to dramatically reduce Audible's costs and time to market while improving the vendor relationship."

The powerful combination of RampRate's vendor portfolio and SPY Index allows businesses to significantly reduce costs and time to market. The company has facilitated hundreds of IT sourcing transactions resulting in a success rate of over 98 percent, compared to 44 percent of outsourcing engagements initiated through traditional methods. RampRate focuses on on-shore specialties such as hosting, content delivery, streaming, telecom, messaging, helpdesk, and bandwidth sourcing services. In addition to greatly reducing risk, customers often save an average of 30 percent in an initial engagement.

For more information on RampRate IT sourcing services go to www.ramprate.com .

About Audible, Inc.

Audible ( www.audible.com ) is the leader in spoken entertainment, information and educational programming on the Internet. Content from Audible is downloaded and played back on personal computers, CDs, orAudibleReady® computer-based mobile devices. Audible has more than 90,000 hours of audio programs from 293 content partners that include leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Audible.com is the Apple iTunes Music Store's preeminent provider of spoken-word products for downloading or streaming via the Web. Among the Company's key business relationships are Amazon.com, Apple Corp., Bookspan, Creative Labs, Dell, iriver, Microsoft Corporation, Palm Inc., SanDisk Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., and XM Satellite Radio.