The AA
The AA is one of the UK's best-known and best-loved brands. When they wanted to enhance their marketing procurement processes, they chose MarketingUnity.
Leading brands invariably have a huge demand for marketing collateral, and many have specialist personnel dedicated to meeting it. One such company is the AA, which uses MarketingUnity’s Procurement Manager to control its marketing procurement. As a direct result, it has streamlined the quotation process and generated substantial time and cost savings.
The AA is the UK’s largest motoring organisation. It was formed in 1905 by a group of motoring enthusiasts who wanted to help other drivers to avoid police speed traps! Over the years it has developed considerably, and now has some 3,300 highly trained breakdown patrols serving millions of members.
The AA has a significant annual print spend, mostly generated from marketing teams covering different business sectors. In 2003, the organisation started looking for a more effective business process to cope with these diverse marketing requirements. In particular, it needed to be able to quickly specify needs, identify suppliers and obtain quotes: a complex, costly and time-consuming process when done manually.
Consistency and cost-effectiveness
Ryan Hennessey, the AA’s Head of Marketing Services and Fulfilment, explains: – “We needed a more consistent approach to the financial aspects of procurement and the associated reports. We wanted to be able to collate a range of marketing-related information in a consistent format so that we could report the financial details back into the business. Because we have so many different marketing jobs, we were also looking for opportunities for consolidating jobs to increase the cost-effectiveness of our marketing procurement.”
MarketingUnity went live in April 2004, and has consistently delivered benefits since, with the AA not hesitating to renew the contract through 4 terms.
MarketingUnity’s team has worked closely with the organisation to configure the software to meet its specific needs. The platform has proved so effective that it is used to manage a wide range of work, including all of the organisation’s marketing print, direct mail, inserts, flyers and Point of Sale material. It handles some 1,000 jobs per year.
Speed and control
Ryan Hennessey continues: “MarketingUnity has given us a much more defined and consistent business process that provides us with greater control over our marketing jobs and our preferred suppliers. It speeds up the whole process of producing quotes.”
“It has been well received by our network of approved suppliers, and also by our own marketing teams. A key benefit comes from repeat work: MarketingUnity can create new jobs by ‘cloning’ and amending previous ones very easily. It enables us to carry out repeat jobs in a fraction of the time they used to take, saving a huge amount of administrative time and paperwork. It also allows us to provide our suppliers with a report on their performance information that helps both them and us.”
Procurement Manager
Efficient and cost-effective procurement of bespoke and/or complex categories, including print.
Request a demo