Caesars Entertainment used Ariba Discovery to find new, diverse and low-cost suppliers more quickly and inexpensively.

1. S U CCE S S S TOR Y
Caesars Entertainment
Finding New Diverse and Low-Cost Suppliers Reduces
Time and Expenses
The Challenges
Caesars Entertainment (Caesars), a premiere, global casino-entertainment
company, wanted to add additional suppliers to auctions held on the Ariba
Sourcing™ solution to increase competition, but found traditional methods
of locating and vetting new suppliers via phone, email, and sales meetings
to be antiquated and time consuming.
• 10% savings in overall cost on
multi-million dollar deal
• 50% savings in time to find a
low-cost country supplier
• 97% reduction in lead
turnaround time
Caesars is committed to working with diverse, women-owned,
veteran-owned and local suppliers. As a result of the company’s
geographic expansion, their sourcing teams faced challenges such as
unfamiliarity with local suppliers, and a need to validate that the new
suppliers they identified were able to fulfill their purchasing needs.
Caesars needed to add more suppliers to their sourcing events, evaluate
their ability to satisfy purchasing needs, and ensure that supplier diversity
goals were met.
The Solutions
Caesars used the Ariba Discovery™ solution to quickly find suppliers that
met specific needs, including diversity and low-cost country sourcing
requirements. With the help of Ariba Discovery, today Caesars can:
• Easily evaluate, compare, and respond to proposals by receiving
responses in a single location, with the exact details needed
• Import new suppliers directly into their supplier database in
Ariba Sourcing
• Engage quickly with awarded suppliers who are already set up on the
Ariba® Network, facilitating the overall sourcing process from supplier
discovery to contract delivery

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The Benefits
Caesars created several successful postings on Ariba Discovery.
As a result, the company has achieved savings in overall sourcing
costs as well as time, allowing them to maximize productivity.
The sourcing team cut the time it took to find low-cost country
suppliers of banquet chairs by 50%, saved 10% in overall cost
on a multi-million dollar baked goods project, and reduced
lead turnaround time by over 97% while doubling the number
of suppliers participating in a sourcing event for drug
screening services.
Caesars also used Ariba Discovery to meet their diversity
requirements and ended up considerably reducing sourcing
cost while looking for a local supplier to provide bulk beverage
carbon dioxide for soft drinks along with other industrial
gases. “We received strong bids from diverse suppliers and
the best price came from a local, woman-owned supplier. This
is a huge win – without Ariba Discovery, it would have been
very challenging to find this supplier,” explains Kory Manley,
Director, Strategic Sourcing, Caesars Entertainment.
“There are several tiers of criteria you can apply on Ariba
Discovery to cast a wide net for suppliers,” adds Tim Thompson,
Strategic Sourcing - National Beverage Manager at Caesars,
who used the service to search for local, large beverage
distributors that were already supplying other casinos. “Ariba
Discovery has been helpful for me because I took over a
different region and category with a learning curve. Using
Ariba Discovery, I was able to easily find and vet suppliers
in this new category.” Thompson was pleased he received
multiple responses despite having such targeted search criteria
and grateful that the process saved him time by eliminating
suppliers who were not a good fit.
Caesars was enthused by their postings’ success; they saw
very good supplier participation with five-plus responses on
average, and they were able to find suppliers that were easier
to work with than the incumbents. “We already have many
suppliers in our database,” explains Celia Parsons, Category
Manager – Indirect and Professional Services, at Caesars, “But
if you have been using the same suppliers for years and don’t
want to go elsewhere, you may not be using the right or the
best suppliers.” Sean Baumgartner, Director of
Purchasing at Caesars agrees: “Our main goal is increasing
our supplier base in categories where we only have a small
number of suppliers. There’s nothing more valuable than a large
qualified supplier base.”
Getting quotes from multiple suppliers and adding additional
suppliers to sourcing events increases competition. “If you
are going to execute successful auctions, you need to have a
large, qualified group of suppliers. Ariba Discovery is a quick
and easy way to find and vet additional suppliers to meet our
unique needs,” adds Manley. “It doesn’t take much time to
create a posting on Ariba Discovery, and you may just find that
there are more suppliers than you think. [...] Ariba Discovery
is all about simplicity and speed. Having access to suppliers
already transacting on the Ariba Network makes our P2P
implementation efforts easier.”
About Caesars Entertainment
Caesars Entertainment Corporation is the world’s most diversified casinoentertainment company. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada, 75 years ago,
Caesars has grown through development of new resorts, expansions and
acquisitions and now operates casinos on four continents. The company’s
resorts operate primarily under the Caesars®, Harrah’s® and Horseshoe®
brand names. Caesars also owns the London Clubs International family
of casinos. Caesars is focused on building loyalty and value with its
guests through a unique combination of great service, excellent products,
unsurpassed distribution, operational excellence and technology leadership.
We are committed to environmental sustainability and energy conservation
and recognize the importance of being a responsible steward of the
environment. For more information, please visit www.caesars.com.
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 webbased 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
“Ariba Discovery makes our sourcing process easier. It’s a very simple tool to use, it takes very little time,
and it’s been very helpful in finding qualified suppliers. We are transacting with suppliers we would have
never found without Ariba Discovery.”
Kory Manley, Director, Strategic Sourcing, Caesars Entertainment
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