Office Supplier Takes Green Initiatives to the Max
With nearly 1,000 stores throughout the country, OfficeMax has built a reputation for delivering excellent customer service and providing office and retail product solutions that help their customers “do their best work.”
However, the company’s friendly associates and convenient locations are only part of their success story. The Fortune 1000 company also is making great strides in minimizing its environmental impact in many areas of the company from product stewardship to its internal accounting practices.
Starting in 2005, OfficeMax launched an aggressive plan to conserve energy while delivering operational efficiencies and cost savings. A big component of this program included making significant changes at its retail locations – such as retrofitting its stores with T-8 lighting with electronic ballasts. Efforts also included installing Energy Management Systems (EMS) in all of its retail locations – a move that would allow OfficeMax to centrally manage lighting and HVAC.
While the in-store changes were creating a significant impact on the company’s footprint, the Illinois-based retailer also realized there were other ways they could improve processes to green their operations. With that as a backdrop, OfficeMax decided to streamline its back-office accounting practices by transitioning from paper invoicing to an electronic submission process.
Although OfficeMax had been e-invoicing for some time, they joined OB10 in 2007 for the purpose of submitting electronic invoices to a single customer. The office supply giant now submits electronic invoices to 10 customers via the OB10 Network, discovering that subsequent customer connections are relatively easy. In addition, the increase in electronic invoice submissions has had a significant positive impact on the company’s accounts receivable operation and sustainability initiative.
“Working with vendors, like OB10, has helped us with our sustainability initiatives across our organization – from our accounts payable processes to our retail locations,” said Mike Williams, senior director, Strategic Sourcing at OfficeMax. “Eliminating paper from our back office accounting processes has played an instrumental role in helping us push the envelope in search of greener opportunities and, moreover, improve our balance sheet.”
In all, OfficeMax has achieved a variety of measureable results for its electricity demand reduction program, including:
- Reducing its CO2 emissions resulting from electricity usage from 466,974 metric tons in 2005 to 296,410 metric tons in 2009 – a 37 percent reduction,
- Dropping its kilowatt per hour (kWh) usage per square foot from 28.18 in 2005 to 15.67 in 2009 – a 45 percent reduction,
- Reducing its kWh usage from 740M kWh in 2005 to 470M kWh in 2009 – a 36 percent reduction.
These results also helped the company earn the 2010 Green Supply and Demand Chain Award from Supply and Demand Chain Executive magazine.
“We have far exceeded our expectations of greening our stores and supplying products and services in a manner that’s sensitive to environmental issues,” Williams added. “Moving to the OB10 electronic invoicing network was a key component is helping us reach our sustainability goals and nicely complements our paper procurement policy in which we work with our paper suppliers to promote responsible practices.”
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Morning Coffee with Donna McGuinness
Over the years I’ve received many calls from accounts payable and accounts receivable professionals in search of a better understanding of electronic invoicing. They want to know everything from whether e-Invoicing makes sense for their organization to how one gets started in transitioning from paper to electronic.
Having worked with hundreds of companies automating accounts payable processes over the past sixteen years, I’ve picked up many best practices and tools which will help you successfully navigate the waters of determining which invoice automation solution is right for you. For example, learning exactly what to do with the paper that permeates the invoice-to-pay process and understanding whether paper can be completely removed from your operation or simply covered up will help you begin to make sense of an often confusing subject.
The key to success is to fully understand your options in eliminating costs and freeing up time to focus on and deliver value added benefits to your organization. I’ll share some of those ways in the next installment of Morning Coffee. It’s lunch time and I must go agonize over the decision to exercise, eat healthy or grab the chicken wings I’m craving! Until next time.
Donna McGuinness is Director of Business Development for OB10. With more than 20 years of B2B experiences and 16 years of invoice-to-pay automation experience, Donna brings unique insight into the issues that challenge AP and AR professionals. Donna can be reached at donna.mcguinness@ob10.com, 818-601-7451.
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