TradingPartners Works with Government to Reduce Costs by 22 Percent on Targeted Spend

LONDON, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Savings Achieved Across Central and Local Government, Defence, Education, Health, Public Services, and Prisons

TradingPartners™ (http://www.tradingpartners.com/) today announced it has saved its government sector customers an average of 22 percent of targeted spend, through its spend management technology and services. TradingPartners has worked closely with many public sector customers since 2003 enabling them to reduce costs, streamline buying processes, and help negotiate more effectively and efficiently.

TradingPartners' spend management activities have saved the government sector over 170 million pounds across defence, education, healthcare, prisons, and services sectors. The breadth of savings categories is highly diverse, and includes carbon credits, construction materials, utilities, food, furniture, IT hardware, mobile phones, office supplies, temporary labor, vehicles, travel services, and uniforms.

Mark Barnekow, CEO of TradingPartners said, "At a time when governments are under pressure to balance budgets, more aggressive and transparent spend management programs are needed. TradingPartners helps public sector customers develop strategies and best practices so they can identify the right suppliers, negotiate more effectively and save taxpayer money."

Many of TradingPartners' spend management activities with government customers transcend the typical spend negotiation activity. TradingPartners actively works with government and public sector customers to execute their initiatives and, where appropriate, helps to aggregate spend across multiple entities. TradingPartners works with incumbent suppliers and identifies new suppliers who meet the specific regulatory requirements in areas such as diversity and sustainability.

The UK government currently estimates a 2012 annual spend of 703 billion pounds (1) of which TradingPartners estimates approximately three to five percent (21-35 billion pounds) is negotiable. Based on the company's government savings statistics, TradingPartners estimates the government could save between 4.6 billion pounds to 7.7 billion pounds if strategic spend management and negotiation practices were to be applied.

About TradingPartners

Based in Chicago, with European headquarters in London, and operations in Asia and South America, TradingPartners provides the most comprehensive and effective spend management technology and managed services to governments, retailers and other corporations to reduce the cost of their direct and indirect purchases with tangible results often in the 10-25% range. TradingPartners' unparalleled domain expertise, comprehensive supplier database, and robust technology platform has helped hundreds of public sector entities, manufacturers, retailers, and service firms achieve dramatic, tangible cost savings. For more information, visit http://www.tradingpartners.com/.

(1) Source: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk