Avendra, a leading procurement services company with nearly $2 billion in
purchasing volume, and Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, a hotelier with 83
hotels in eight countries, were honored as “Most Innovative” in the 2005
Outsourcing Excellence Awards presented by the Outsourcing Center. The
Outsourcing Excellence Awards are sponsored by the Everest Group (owner of
the Outsourcing Center) and Forbes Magazine, and publicly honor the six
most outstanding outsourcing relationships each year. Some past honorees
include Accenture and British Petroleum, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and ANZ
Bank, AAA and EDS, and City of Minneapolis and Unisys Corporation.“This award celebrates the strategic vision and innovative spirit that
Avendra was founded on four years ago, as well as our ability to partner
with customers to execute that vision,” said Dennis Baker, president and
CEO of Avendra. “Fairmont was one of our founding customers and has been a
tremendous partner from the start. We have pushed each other to new
heights. As a result, Fairmont has been instrumental in our growth and
success as a company.”

“We were delighted to nominate Avendra for this award,” said John
Carnella, executive vice president and CFO of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
“Fairmont is a collection of unique and diverse hotels. We are faced with
the challenge of building consistency while retaining much of the
individuality that positions us apart from our competition. Avendra has
crafted a solution that recognizes our need for individuality, yet
leverages its buying power and supply chain expertise to drive value to
our properties.”

“The idea of leveraging procurement across an industry and then turning
the function over to an independent company was a totally unique concept,”
said Debra Floyd, COO of the Outsourcing Center. “Although the concept was
untried, in 2001 Avendra and its five founding entities took the steps to
form a hospitality industry procurement services company. Together they
laid the foundation to work deep into the supply chain, going beyond the
distributor to negotiate attractive pricing with manufacturers and
sometimes raw materials suppliers. In just three years their consortium
has proved a tremendous success offering customers substantial cost
savings and comprehensive supply chain management.”

Avendra offers its customers a wide range of flexible purchasing
solutions. Its purchasing programs are comprised of over 900 suppliers
offering significant cost savings and enhanced service levels. Further,
Avendra offers a wide range of related services such as quality assurance,
operational consulting, specification development, purchasing information
and more to help customers maximize their procurement operations.
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