Staples

COMPANY

Staples is a global company with retail and delivery businesses serving customers in over 25 countries. In addition to its 1,800 retail locations and online B2C sites that offer office supplies and office technology, Staples supports over 400 enterprise B2B Corporate Accounts through its SPS division. Each of these 400 unique corporate contract customers has a different brand and product set. In addition, each account requires its own procurement rules, user permissions, and corporate organizational hierarchies. The complexities of managing a single enterprise account, let alone 400 of them, is a massive operational challenge. Managing that challenge cost-effectively is yet another hurdle.

Staples knew that in order to keep these corporate customers happy and engaged, they needed to improve control over pricing, merchandising and service by streamlining the administration of their B2B platform and eliminating disparate supplier technologies from their customer-facing solution.

Staples chose to implement Four51’s OrderCloud platform to tackle the complexities of their customer requirements while helping them control the cost of service delivery. OrderCoud's multi-tenant, cloud-based architecture allows Staples to manage their entire B2B enterprise customer base from a single administrative interface, dramatically reducing customer set up and admin time. In addition, OrderCloud's API allows seamless integration into Staples back-end systems, driving additional automation to reduce both cost and errors. The Staples solution is comprised of:

• Over 400 uniquely branded customer experiences administered from one single administrative platform

• Individualized procurement processes uniquely defined for each organization's requirements

• Configurable permissions assigned at the company, group or user level allowing granular user experiences to be created within sites

• Shared product capability across sites to minimize administration and create fast, efficient client implementations

• OrderCloud's parallel and serial approval rules engine which allows the creation of infinite approval scenarios to quickly duplicate each client's existing procurement environment

• Order and shipping integration to Staples fulfillment systems via the OrderCloud API

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

SOLUTION

STAPLES DELIVERS OVER 400 UNIQUELY BRANDED B2B SITES THROUGH A SINGLE ADMIN INTERFACE ON ORDERCLOUD

OrderCloud allowed Staples to consolidate its customer-facing B2B solutions onto a single, integrated commerce platform. By taking advantage of OrderCloud's multi-tenant, cloud-based architecture and robust API, Staples achieved both implementation speed and cost-effective administration of its highly complex customer base. Staples is now receiving tens of thousands of fully automated monthly orders.

Staples makes it easy to make more happen with more products and more ways to shop. Through its world-class retail, online and delivery capabilities, Staples lets customers shop however and whenever they want, whether it’s in store, online or on mobile devices. Staples has been making it easy for businesses for 27 years with thousands of associates worldwide. Headquartered outside of Boston, Staples operates throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. More information about Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS) is available at staples.com®.

ABOUT STAPLES

Four51 | 400 1st Avenue North, Suite 200 | Minneapolis, MN 55401 | www.four51.com

About Four51 OrderCloud is an enterprise B2B commerce platform giving you the power to manage your B2B commerce, content, and customer experience across every channel and on any device. It’s built with an API-First approach that enables limitless customization and extensibility.

Flickr photo by Mike Mozart

RESULTS