Enhancing productivity and reducing costs in procurement
PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
The Association
of Corporate Counsel (ACC) announced today that Axalta Coating
Systems (NYSE:AXTA), a leading manufacturer of liquid and powder
coatings, was named a 2016 ACC
Value Champion for the manner in which it was able to help the
procurement department transform its procedures, saving time and
reducing legal fees.
A component of the ACC
Value Challenge, which promotes reconnecting the cost and value of
legal services, the ACC Value Champions initiative recognized Axalta as
one of twelve corporate legal departments and law department/law firm or
legal service provider collaborations that delivered substantial value
to their client organizations by cutting spending, improving
predictability and achieving better legal outcomes.
“This year’s ACC Value Champions demonstrate the positive impact a
strong law department has on the business and its bottom line,” said Veta
T. Richardson, president and CEO of ACC. “The law departments we
honored created solutions to business problems, initiated strong
partnerships with other departments as well as outside counsel, and
created processes and systems to empower clients to initiate business
agreements and get answers quickly.”
Axalta seized an opportunity to start anew after the company separated
from DuPont in a carve out. The Law Department, with help from Hunton &
Williams, built templates and playbooks to overhaul procurement, a
crucial part of the business. Lawyers provided training on using the
playbooks; as a result, the procurement department now processes 62
percent of contracts without engaging the legal department, approaching
an 80 percent goal. Due to these initiatives and alternative fee
arrangement-based spending with Hunton & Williams, annual spend for
commercial contract review by outside counsel has dropped 80 percent.
“We’re tremendously proud to receive this level of peer recognition for
the work our Law Department and partners at Hunton & Williams have
performed,” explained Michael Finn, Axalta Senior Vice President and
General Counsel. “Our procurement department is the single largest area
of spend at the company and being able to support their work and create
added efficiencies has been gratifying. Our work with our in-house
client and the Hunton team was all the more rewarding because we
accomplished it while the entire company was transitioning into becoming
an independent organization.”
Axalta worked with Richmond-based Hunton & Williams attorneys on a
fixed-fee basis to create a more effective contracting system focusing
on value, performance, and efficiency. Each new set of procurement
templates was paired with a set of procedures guiding their use and
negotiation. In the process, the attorneys collaborated to develop a
collective view of unique commercial aspects and risk tolerance of the
business, then drafted agreements that balanced the need for efficient
negotiations with protecting Axalta’s interests.
Making the process even more challenging was the fact that many of the
staff of both the Law and Procurement Departments were new to the
company. While bringing fresh perspective to the company, they had to
work through existing systems and keep the business running in the midst
of changing not only procurement procedures but a myriad of other
business systems that required support from the Law Department.
“It’s rare for a company to re-do its entire way of buying,” explained
Randall Parks, the partner at Hunton & Williams who supported the
project. “The innovation was in the scale of the project and the legal
team’s ability to rethink how the legal organization engaged a large
swath of its business.”
ACC received 57 nominations from law departments and law firms with at
least one year of results tracking. The complete list of the 2016 ACC
Value Champions, along with additional details related to the Axalta
submission, can be viewed online at: www.acc.com/valuechampions.
About Axalta Coating Systems – Celebrating 150 Years in the Coatings
Industry
Axalta is a leading global company focused solely on coatings and
providing customers with innovative, colorful, beautiful and sustainable
solutions. From light OEM vehicles, commercial vehicles and refinish
applications to electric motors, buildings and pipelines, our coatings
are designed to prevent corrosion, increase productivity and enable the
materials we coat to last longer. Celebrating 150 years of experience in
the coatings industry, the more than 12,800 people of Axalta continue to
find ways to serve our more than 100,000 customers in 130 countries
better every day with the finest coatings, application systems and
technology. For more information visit axaltacoatingsystems.com
and follow us @axalta on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160511006424/en/
Source: Axalta Coating Systems