PAIN-FREE IMPLEMENTATION IS AN AH-HA MOMENT

Gummer admits she was worried about hitting roadblocks during implementation. “I assumed it would be a difficult process,” she says. “I was utterly shocked at how easy and simple it was, and how quickly our materials managers adapted to using it.” 

Martinez agrees. “We had an aggressive timeline to roll this out,” he notes. “Honestly, I can’t think of a time where something didn’t go right.” 

They credit the success to strong communication throughout the process. “The Provista team was great at communicating and were always there to help,” Gummer says. “We have strategic plans, and they’re part of that strategy. It’s a really great partnership.” 

PROVISTA ENABLES NEW PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS

At the same time Cornerstone switched to Envi, it also began using the procurement services offered by Provista, the organization’s group purchasing organization (GPO) that was providing best-in-class contract pricing and supply chain solutions. Provista, in conjunction with IOS, has a procurement team in place that has the ability to issue purchase orders (POs), which makes life much easier for materials managers. 

“Our materials managers were issuing POs. Now they just issue order entries in Envi,” Gummer says. “Provista takes those order entries and issues the PO to the vendor. This gives materials managers time back in their day so they can focus on other areas.” 

Another benefit is the ability to physically scan entries, rather than the old method of writing down item numbers, which has slashed time spent on this process by 40%. In addition, Provista notifies Cornerstone of backorders and can recommend product substitutions. The Envi technology also lets users quickly see any pricing not on contract. This helps drive contract utilization. 

“One big lever that we pulled last year was price alignment services with Provista,” Martinez adds. “The team monitored spend on a regular basis, checking POs against contracts and making sure we had correct pricing. They identified the credits we were due, mainly from the distributor end. Those were large credits we were getting back.” 

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERTISE SOLVE PROBLEMS

Using Envi and working with Provista solved Cornerstone’s procurement pain points and enabled new capabilities:

• A user-friendly platform simplifies the PO process, tracking inventory and reporting.
• Strategic sourcing via a single platform is helping Cornerstone realize its vision of centralized procurement. 
• Drive savings through several key initiatives, including contract utilization, formulary development and management, and inventory reduction.

One of Cornerstone’s current goals is to move toward a single formulary. “Envi allows us to put a foundation in place for identifying things that are on formulary, not on formulary and de-activate things we shouldn’t be purchasing,” Martinez notes.  

Envi also gives Martinez and others peace of mind that they can trust their data. Local materials managers can now leverage data sets when meeting with CEOs, while dashboards and pricing visibility are provided from the Dallas corporate offices. 

“Not only can we pull data quickly, we also have a high level of confidence that it’s correct,” he points out. “We can walk into any meeting and feel confident in our data, whether it’s receipts history or a certain category of spend. This is huge because it gives our department credibility when we’re having discussion with accounting, the executive team, or whoever it may be, that we’re a reliable source of information. That wasn’t the case with the previous system.”