Sam Crawford spent six years serving his country as a member of the United States Navy. Today, he is devoted to helping his fellow veterans build bright futures. And he’s leveraging Ariba® Discovery™, the premier service for matching business buyers and sellers offered by Ariba, an SAP Company, to do it. As Director of Operations for Armed Forces Construction Group, LLC Crawford employs skilled veterans to support commercial and residential construction projects. And Ariba Discovery connects him with opportunities to place them. Crawford currently has crews in 12 states. And with the help of Ariba Discovery, he’s optimistic he’ll be in all 50 by the end of the year.

“It’s just so easy,” Crawford says. “I signed on eight months ago and I have so many leads, I am still trying to qualify them all.”

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. Using the service, buying organizations with budget in active purchasing cycles can:

  • 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, women and veteran-owned business status and green certifications to support corporate diversity and social responsibility initiatives

This, says Crawford, is what sold him on signing up. “There are a lot of sites out there aimed at helping companies find new business and we tried many of them,” he recalls. “But we found ourselves going to six places to win one opportunity. With Ariba, we get access to more qualified leads and much bigger projects.”

And they win business. To date Armed Forces Construction has responded to over 100 opportunities posted on Ariba Discovery and closed more than 30 percent of them. In addition, Crawford has forged relationships that he is confident will lead to future deals. “Even in cases where I don’t win, I have a personal contact at the company, and am put on their preferred list,” he says.

There are many tools that buying organizations can use to find leads. But according to Rob Mihalko, Vice President of Seller Marketing and Ariba Discovery, not all of these tools are created equal.

“As innovative companies like Armed Forces Construction have figured out, the key to successfully converting leads into business is to connect to an intelligent network that can deliver detailed information on its members and their activities along with community-generated feedback and recommendations,” he says.

In the last year, over $3.7 billion in new business opportunities have been posted and more than 23.6 million leads exchanged through Ariba Discovery. To learn more about the service and the value it can deliver for your organization, visit: http://discovery.ariba.com.

About Armed Forces Construction Group
Armed Forces Construction Group provides crews of right-skilled veterans to support commercial and residential construction projects. Founded in 2007, we are a Veterans Administration/ADA certified company with operations in 59 cities across 12 states. For more information on the services we provide, visit: www.armedforcesconstruction.us or call 888-871-0228.

About Ariba, an SAP Company
Ariba is the world’s business commerce network. Ariba combines industry-leading cloud-based applications with the world's largest Internet-based trading community to help companies discover and collaborate with a global network of partners. Using the Ariba® Network, businesses of all sizes can connect to their trading partners anywhere, at any time from any application or device to buy, sell and manage their cash more efficiently and effectively than ever before. Companies around the world use the Ariba Network to simplify inter-enterprise commerce and enhance the results that they deliver. Join them at: www.ariba.com.

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 291,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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