Client: Fastenal, the fastest growing and largest fastener distributor in the United States, maintains total revenues of approximately $2.1 billion a year. Its business network consists of 12 distribution centers in the United States and a fleet of more than 275 semi-trucks and trailers. Fastenal operates more than 2,160 stores with locations in all 50 states and Canada, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Europe, and China.

Challenges:

• Manual telecom processes
• No inventory tracking or central depository to organize inventory
• Many of 2,000 + locations worked with regional carriers who provided only paper bills
• Resource-constrained
• Little-to-no visibility of telecom spend
• No auditing or optimization of services
• No usage analysis or benchmarking
• Little to no cost allocation
• No ability to make quick changes or strategic decisions for future budgeting

Solution:

Asentinel’s solution provided immediate, dramatic savings for Fastenal, and helped the company to organize and streamline their processes.

Asentinel was able to show Fastenal their billing at a level of detail they had never seen before, and the savings were quickly realized. Before completing the Asentinel implementation and with only 40 percent of their spend in the system, and contracts not yet loaded into the system, Fastenal was able to eliminate $17,000 a month in telecom spend, which equates to $200,000 annually.

“We are so happy. We have already found so many things that we should not be paying for: a store with seven lines and voicemail on each, Internet advertising that we did not authorize, etc.,” said Tom Leach, IT Operations Manager, Fastenal.

With more than 2,000 locations worldwide, Fastenal was receiving a variety of invoices from regional vendors, many of which could only provide paper invoices. Asentinel introduced Fastenal to TFMS™ (TouchFree Managed Services), Asentinel’s process to ensure all invoices – whether paper, CD-ROM, or electronic – are read accurately and efficiently. Using OIR™ (Optical Invoice Recognition) proprietary technology, Asentinel can upload even paper invoices into the system, where they are read down to the lowest level of detail.

Now that the visibility is clearer, Fastenal can task its limited staff with more strategic, proactive budgeting, instead of the reactive manual processes they were engaged in before.
Efficiency has improved, and the savings continue to grow.

Results:

• With only 40 percent of their spend in the application, and no contract orders performed, Fastenal has eliminated $17,000 monthly in spend ($200,000 annually). 
• Found a store with seven telephone lines plus voicemail that were not being used
• Found unauthorized Internet advertising that was coming out of the telecom budget
• All invoices go through the system accurately and efficiently, using the TFMS™ and OIR™ technology.
• Fastenal can now play a more active role in strategic budgeting