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Article: Office suppliers target purchasing. (national account programs)
- Article from:
- Purchasing
- Article date:
- November 19, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Four years ago, Mike Esbenshade, then a senior buyer at Hershey Chocolate, Hershey, Pa., made a bold move. He dumped the company's collection of office products and standardized on one company for practically all its office-equipment needs--fax, copiers, calculators, printers, and the occasional typewriter--all under a national account program.
Hershey was one of the first businesses to buy into a national account program. The company it signed with, Sharp Electronics, was one of the first to offer such a program. Today, almost all major office-equipment manufacturers offer national account programs, including Canon, Mita, and Panasonic. These companies service a ...