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apsolut implements SAP Ariba Buying Snap for wolfcraft
Company
wolfcraft GmbH
Branch
Tools for the DIY market
Products
Transport systems; one-handed clamps; machine tables, clamping tables and workbenches; jigsaw blades; hole saws; drills; milling cutters; sanding blocks and many more
Number of employees
Approximately 700
Turnover
120 million euros
Headquarters
Kempenich, Germany
Websitewww.wolfcraft.de
Change of Plans during Initial Consultation
The issue of indirect procurement wasn’t even on wolfcraft’s original to-do list. Back in summer 2021, the company had viewed an online training course about the Digital Supplier Network (DSN), the supplier portal for companies that use SAP ERP. wolfcraft wanted to learn more about the DSN and signed up for a training programme with apsolut.
„During our conversation with apsolut, it quickly became clear that while we definitely did have potential for digitalisation in direct procurement, the potential in indirect procurement was much greater. That’s why we shifted our focus, and it was absolutely the right decision“,
recalls Yvonne Kippschull, SAP Process & Application Consultant at wolfcraft.
Up to that point, the issue of indirect procurement hadn’t really been on management’s radar; the company had a manual process that worked well enough. ‘For a long time, our company was small enough that our departments had no problem procuring office supplies, C items and services themselves’, explains Daniela Rademacher, Procurement Manager at wolfcraft. ‘If anything was unclear, we could sort of bypass the official channels – like if the purchase requisition for an invoice was missing, for instance.’
In a subsequent consultation with apsolut, the benefits of SAP Ariba Buying for wolfcraft were laid out in detail. Additionally, wolfcraft had only negotiated prices with suppliers to a limited extent at that point. The company did not have consistent rules for approvals or proxies. It was impossible for wolfcraft to conduct reliable analyses, and there was room for improvement in the company’s monitoring of compliance rules, as well. The new tool improved all of these factors. What’s more, materials and services are now processed automatically, from ordering to invoicing, with very little manual intervention in between.
apsolut’s approach and the structures in place at wolfcraft were absolutely decisive in the project being implemented on time and within budget. There were no complicated corporate guidelines, and the project could be managed entirely according to best practices.
The initial results are remarkable: the feedback from users has been overwhelmingly positive. They appreciate the intuitive user interface and the wide range of integrated catalogues, which include numerous SMEs alongside major suppliers such as Amazon Business and Würth. The company has already seen cost savings in a number of material groups – incidentally, the codes for these products were also converted to the UNSPSC standard as part of the project.
The go-live for the project was in July 2024; however, the transformation is not yet complete. Further suppliers and catalogues will be integrated, and integration with the SAP S/4HANA suite is still pending; the suite is currently being implemented. When the time is right, wolfcraft will discuss further advanced features in SAP Ariba with apsolut.
SAP Ariba Buying allows users to integrate more than just the catalogues of well-known providers such as Amazon Business or Würth; wolfcraft, for instance, also integrates internally managed wolfcraft catalogues for its employees, which include products from the company’s suppliers.
The intuitive guided buying user interface requires very little employee training. ‘Many of our colleagues say that by the second or third time they use it, it’s basically a nobrainer’, says project manager Yvonne Kippschull.
Implemented tools
SAP Ariba Snap Buying
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„During our conversation with apsolut, it quickly became clear that while we definitely did have potential for digitalisation in direct procurement, the potential in indirect procurement was much greater. That’s why we shifted our focus, and it was absolutely the right decision“,
Yvonne Kippschull, SAP-Prozess- & Application Consultant, wolfcraft
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