David’s Cookies discovers leads

Sunnyvale, Calif. – David’s Cookies competes in a crowded marketplace and even encounters issues resulting from its own brand fragmentation. Trying to locate and convert leads around the world is understandably a huge marketing expense typically involving lots of time and travel. But since implementing the Ariba Discovery trading platform last year, David’s Cookies has found dozens of new clients with much less time, travel and expense.

“It’s easier than having our reps spend so much time away,” said Brent Maloy, VP national accounts for David’s Cookies. “One staple used to be getting out there to food shows and food events.”

The company now simply adds information using keywords, such as “bakery” and “dessert,” to the Discovery platform for interested buyers to find and also finds relevant RFPs and RFIs to respond to. A proprietary matching engine helps link David’s Cookies to prospective buyers, and Discovery tools aid in such activities as evaluating profiles, reviewing community ratings of prospective business partners and gaining visibility into e-commerce capabilities of trading partners.

“Discovery has become a standard part of our business,” said Maloy. “Each sales rep adds product lines to the base.”