What Did Automated Contact Discovery Deliver for a Fortune 500 Medical Device Company?
Founder & CEO Published Mar 9, 2026
A Fortune 500 medical device manufacturer now receives 1,000 Qualified Contacts per year at less than one third the cost of a prior $120,000+ consultant engagement that delivered 500 contacts once, with only ~60% usable. Internal data covered ~300 of 1,000+ target suppliers before automation. Bridgecurrent returns Qualified Contacts on 95%+ of lookups, with quarterly staleness checks included.
What Was the Problem?
The company committed to SBTi targets and CDP reporting, requiring supplier-level sustainability data. ERP and procurement systems held purchasing contacts (sales, invoicing, delivery), not the people who manage environmental reporting or EHS compliance.
For 1,000+ targeted suppliers, reliable sustainability contacts existed for roughly 300. The remaining 700+ had no known contact.
What Did They Try First?
- Manual research at 10 to 15 contacts per day. Researching 700 suppliers would take months.
- Sending to PO contacts, hoping requests forwarded internally. Response rates were low.
- Cross-department data sharing, yielding only a few dozen additional contacts.
- A consulting firm, paid $120,000+ for 500 contacts delivered once. About 60% were usable. The list went stale within a year. The team declined to renew.
What Changed?
The company engaged Bridgecurrent for automated supplier contact discovery configured for sustainability and EHS roles. For each supplier, the system runs multi-source search (public filings, LinkedIn, corporate structure, prior correspondence), applies tiered matching (primary role, adjacent function, senior leader at small firms), confirms employment, and validates email before delivery.
What Were the Results?
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Target suppliers | 1,000+ | 1,000+ |
| Reliable contacts | ~300 | 1,000/year delivered |
| Lookup success rate | ~60% (consultant) | 95%+ |
| One-time consultant cost (500 contacts) | $120,000+ | N/A |
| Annual cost | N/A | <⅓ of consultant engagement |
| Contact refresh | None | Quarterly, automatic |
| Team access | N/A | Unlimited seats |
Multiple teams beyond sustainability (quality, procurement) have expressed interest. The natural next step is automated outreach from the company’s own email domain with autonomous follow-up.
What Does This Show?
The contact gap was the bottleneck, not the questionnaires or reporting frameworks. One-time research does not match annual reporting cycles where contacts change constantly. A maintained service at a fraction of consultant cost matched the procurement budget reality.
Related Pages
- Customer Proof: the one-page summary of this engagement
- Automated Supplier Contact Discovery
- How Bridgecurrent Finds Supplier Contacts
- How to Collect Scope 3 Emissions Data from Suppliers
- How to Get Suppliers to Respond to EcoVadis
- The Real Cost of Chasing Supplier Documents
Bridgecurrent delivers ongoing contact discovery with validation and quarterly refresh, not a one-time spreadsheet. Learn about automated supplier contact discovery.