ARIBA, INC. 
By SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 29, 2013 - In the face of competition from larger, more established brands, Brent Maloy, Vice President of National Accounts for David's Cookies, a provider of fresh baked goods through food service, B&I, retail, and convenience outlets, used to struggle to get a foot in the door with major restaurant chains, hotels and other large-scale buyers within the food service industry - nationally and internationally. Then he tapped into Ariba® Discovery™, the premier service for matching business buyers and sellers offered by Ariba, an SAP Company, and kicked the door down.
"I basically just signed up, and I'm already up to my knees in new business," Maloy said.
Delivered via the Ariba® Network, Ariba Discovery simplifies the process of discovering qualified partners and business leads by instantly matching buyer requirements to supplier capabilities.
"There are plenty of tools out there that buying organizations can use to find new trading partners, but figuring out whether these suppliers can meet their needs is a bit of a battle," said Rob Mihalko, Vice President, Seller Marketing, Ariba. "And while selling organizations devote a lot of time and resources to promoting themselves to prospective customers, they often come up empty."
Ariba Discovery is uniquely designed to help buyers and sellers overcome these challenges, combining a proprietary matching engine with unique profile information to help buyers identify the right trading partners and sellers generate more relevant leads.
In his first few months using Ariba Discovery, Maloy responded to about a dozen leads, all of which he says were "good ones." And within 30 days, he won a contract for more than 40 line items with a major casino and entertainment company. "That's pretty unheard of," Maloy said.
Prior to signing on to Ariba Discovery, Maloy had been leveraging a mix of traditional lead generation tools and social channels to promote David's Cookies and identify opportunities. "We used to focus on directories of chain restaurants to find the most recent data about key accounts, but it's tedious," he said. "And I thought social media was great, and we did Twitter and Facebook, but it didn't give us enough penetration into the overall food service marketplace - local and abroad."
With Ariba Discovery, Maloy has been able to gain instant visibility - and credibility - for David's Cookies and its brands. "In our busy world, clients don't have time to find out if we have the ability to fulfill their needs - especially, national accounts that need to be served through distribution centers," he says. "Through Ariba, anybody who wants our data can look us up and find all of our information in one place. That's a huge advantage."
As Maloy notes, buyers using Ariba Discovery can eliminate the hassle of discovering qualified partners through unique tools delivered as part of the service that enable them to:
- Evaluate profiles and unique qualifying information for more than one million selling organizations worldwide
- Access community-based references and ratings to judge seller capabilities and performance
- Gain visibility into e-commerce capabilities and performance with other buying organizations to determine experience level and fit
- Track minority and women-owned business status and green certifications to support corporate diversity and social responsibility initiatives
"On LinkedIn, you could be anybody, anywhere," Maloy says. "On Ariba, you can set yourself apart and show that you're actually doing business and are very capable." Maloy is confident this factored into his newest customer's decision to award him millions in business. "The buyer had to see that we are viable," he says. "And when they saw us on the Ariba Network, they knew that we were."
David's Cookies may not be a household name yet, but the company is now playing on the same field with much larger competitors. And Maloy likes their odds of winning. "Ariba Discovery definitely gives us an edge by providing access to clients that our competitors don't have access to," he says. "This is the future of business."
About David's Cookies
David's Cookies is one of the leading providers of fresh baked cookies, crumb cakes, individual serve, T&S brownies, banquet cakes, yogurt muffins, muffin batter, premier cakes…over 1,500 SKU's - they have also acquired Bittersweet, Annies Euro-American Bakery, Cookie Cupboard, and Brooklyn Cheesecake. For more information about David's Cookies , please visit www.davidscookies.com/ www.annieseurobakery.com
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