1. Reducing inventory costs
Through improved visibility, Bell has optimized and reduced inventory, taking millions of dollars off the bottom line.

"Every time you create a slightly different product, you have to put that information in the system and maintain it," says Addante. "You have to maintain all the related pricing information, contract information and forecasting capabilities. And it's easy for people to confuse products and order the wrong one. We've now streamlined our inventory, simplified the whole order process and taken costs out of our operations."

In addition, Bell was able to start up a vendor-managed inventory program with strategic suppliers in the late 1990s. These vendors stock and manage product in Bell-Progistix warehouses, yet carry the inventory on their own balance sheets. Their internal order fulfillment systems are linked via EDI interfaces to the SAP systems. This added transparency and collaboration has helped reduce Bell inventory holdings further, while ensuring fast turnaround of product to Bell customers.

2. Doing more with less and doing it faster.
Impressive gains have been made in distribution cycle time, while Bell Canada has actually consolidated its facilities. The company previously operated several material distribution centers to ensure parts could be shipped quickly to the field. Today, orders are fulfilled through just a handful of centres yet order fulfillment time has actually improved, not declined.

3. Improving information delivery.
With all of its core order and inventory management operations running on a single, integrated platform, product is not the only thing that moves faster at Bell Canada; information does, too. For example, Bell has been able to replace a cumbersome printed material order guide with an e-catalogue and mobile e-procurement solution.