Would you like to find out what our satisfied customers have to say about us? We would be happy to arrange an appointment with you to talk to one of the more than 250 renowned companies that rely on apsolut's specialist knowledge and IT expertise.
apsolut supports GEA with Release Management and Technical Ariba System Monitoring
CompanyGEA Group
BranchSpecialist machine and plant engineering
ProductsMachinery, plants and process technology for the food, beverage and pharmaceuticals industries
Number of employeesover 18,000
Turnover4.7 billion euros in 2021
HeadquartersDüsseldorf, Germany
Websitewww.gea.com
Transfer of Knowledge and Support during a Complex Transformation
It took fully two weeks to hand over the GEA project from the implementation team to colleagues in Solution Management Services (SMS) within apsolut GmbH. That period of time hints at the complexity of the procurement transformation at GEA. The overall corporate group comprises more than 250 subsidiary companies. With the digital transformation, all operational and strategic SAP Ariba modules will also be rolled out with SAP S/4HANA Central Procurement.
GEA quickly realised that the complexity and sheer number of parallel tasks within this mammoth project would necessitate additional external support. Although GEA considered other competitors at first, it ultimately decided to continue its partnership with apsolut.
‘During the implementation of Ariba and Central Procurement, we had a great many positive experiences and benefited from the expert knowledge of colleagues at apsolut,’ recalls Tina Schmidt, Senior Business Application Consultant SCM and IT Project Manager at GEA ‘In addition, we were also convinced that the transfer of knowledge would be much more straightforward with a partner established in our IT landscape.’
The SMS team at apsolut has since been integrated into the ticket system at GEA. As part of Release Management, new functions will be documented and potential improvements resulting from these releases will be identified. The team also provides regular monitoring to identify and eliminate malfunctions in ongoing operations at an early stage.
In this project – with its numerous modules and back-end ERP systems – monitoring has been a crucial success factor, something that could not very easily been managed with internal resources alone. Since the number of end users will continue to increase as a result of the roll-out with the digital transformation, the complexity will also continue to increase. Over the next two years, Ariba Guided Buying with Central Procurement is expected to be rolled out to a further more than 30 companies.
GEA and apsolut will make a few minor adjustments to their support agreement over the coming fiscal year. apsolut will then provide more technical support. For Bei Mortensen, IT Business Service Owner – SCM & Manufacturing at GEA, this represents the next logical step in the partnership with apsolut:
‘We’re on the right track to being able to take full advantage of the potential that this transformation offers, as apsolut not only gives us the expertise that we need, but also has an incredibly agile and committed approach. apsolut no longer feels like an external partner to me, but more like an internal department, with whom I hope we can continue to work well into the future.’
Technical Ariba System Monitoring: We offer regular monitoring and comprehensive reporting on the performance of your systems to enable rapid identification and bug fixing of errors in ongoing system operation.
Release Management: We take the totality of the content of new releases, filter out the new functions and potential improvements and show you the individual recommendations for action.
Implemented tools
Release Management
Technical Ariba System Monitoring
This might also interest you
“apsolut impressed us in the project work with McKesson above all through the open and cooperative partnership. The project team gets on very well with each other. But we were also impressed by the solution-oriented approach and the fast and efficient enablement of our support staff.”
Annette Römer, Project Manager, McKesson Europe AG
zur Success-Story
"Together with apsolut, we started as a pioneer in Central Procurement and we are very pleased that we were able to reap the first fruits of this pioneering work so early on.”
Stefan Ehrhardt, Head of SAP Governance Purchasing, MAHLE
zur Success-Story
“In addition to the high level of expertise, what impressed me most about the apsolut team was the enormous commitment. We were very well supported throughout all stages and overcame all difficulties together”,
Anne Otto, Business Process Expert, Digital Solutions, JOYNEXT
zur Success-Story
"Of course, we are immensely proud of how we implemented this complex transformation together. The always competent and more than punctual execution moved us to initiate a parallel project for partial process innovation in the ongoing project. Actually a no-go, but with apsolut no problem! With this positive experience, it was easy for us to initiate another project, which is currently being implemented. One thing remains to be said: Without the team around Bodo Hempelmann, this journey would definitely have been more difficult!”
Manuel Steffen, Project Officer Source-to-Pay, Evonik Industries
zur Success-Story
"We have never regretted our decision to rely on apsolut as our implementation partner. The preparation, support, and transparent project progress at all times convinced us. We are delighted to have apsolut as our partner for all questions relating to our SAP Ariba tool."
Marcel Krischer, Zentis GmbH & Co. KG
zur Success-Story
"apsolut impressed us in our project , particularly because of the open and cooperative partnership. The project team gets on very well with each other. But we were also impressed by the solution-oriented approach and the fast and efficient enablement of our support staff!"
Annette Römer, Project Manager at McKesson Europe
zur Success-Story
‘We’re on the right track to being able to take full advantage of the potential that this transformation offers, as apsolut not only gives us the expertise that we need, but also has an incredibly agile and committed approach. apsolut no longer feels like an external partner to me, but more like an internal department, with whom I hope we can continue to work well into the future.’
Dr. Bei Mortensen, IT Business Service Owner – SCM & Manufacturing, GEA Group
zur Success-Story
"apsolut led us in a very cooperative and super-competent manner throughout all phases of the project! Above all, the open collaboration between all project members kept motivation high throughout. The project team gets on very well with each other. We were also impressed by the solution-oriented approach and the ability of the entire project team to make quick decisions!"
Hubert Buchsteiner, Group Vice President Purchasing, ZKW Group
zur Success-Story
„apsolut not only guided us through the project with utmost professionalism and a proactive approach – decisive was the fact that apsolut enabled us to operate the new tool independently and to control the next steps ourselves. In addition, thanks to apsolut, we have been able to establish the right network, including with the right contacts at SAP Austria. The project has been an overwhelming success and we have managed to foster an almost friend-to-friend relationship with the apsolut team."
Gerald Goldgruber, Strategic Manager for Process Management and SAP, Frutura
zur Success-Story
"As our experiences with apsolut were so positive across all national companies, we have already doubled the number of monthly support days twice. Thanks to apsolut, we now have the resources we need to implement rollouts in other national companies. At the moment, they are ongoing in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France.”
Sandra Mancino, Application Consultant, C&A
“We had many specific requirements and together with apsolut we found a solution for each one of them. We used to search for supplier information, now we do find it. We are really very satisfied!”
Tanja Sefrin, Project Manager, KUKA
zur Success-Story
"When selecting a partner for our procurement transformation, a high level of technical know-how was of course also important to us. Here, apsolut was able to convince us with best practices from customers of a comparable size. The decisive factor in the end was the experience in change management! Only in this way were we able to introduce a fully-fledged procurement system that is also accepted by all employees."
Göktürk Simsekol, Digital Transformation Director, Flint Group
zur Success-Story
“With a partner like apsolut, not even a pandemic is able to stop us! When the project started, we were a little skeptical, due to the fact that the project team was unable to meet face-to-face. But we are now delighted to say that all our concerns have proven to be unfounded.“
Chandrashekhar Saldur, AGM - Global Procurement & Projects, ETG Group
zur Success-Story
“For the new Ariba system, wewere able to onboard more than 1,400 users in three national subsidiaries with only little training effort. With regard to our Procurement processes, we have gained significant transparency and control.“
Jane Wanger, Global Procurement Systems & Support bei KSB
zur Success-Story
"apsolut demonstrated a high degree of flexibility and commitment during the project. The structured working methods and the dedicated team enabled us to meet the urgently needed go-live deadlines."
Paul Trautmann, Manager Procurement Processes & Projects, Röhm GmbH
zur Success-Story
"Although personal contact was very limited due to Corona, a strong team formed during the intensive project phase. The decision-making paths at BITZER and apsolut were always short so that issues could be dealt with promptly and the planned go-live date achieved. The home office was not an obstacle, but also gave us the necessary flexibility for a project of this size.
All team members have done a great job, I have rarely worked so well with a consulting firm!"
Steffen Bauer, Project Manager, BITZER
zur Success-Story
“The cooperation with the international apsolut project team from Germany and India was very effective despite the tough schedule. Due to the high degree of standardisation and automation, we were already able to realise potential savings and, in particular reduce process costs.”
Markus Ortlieb, Director Global Procurement, ProMinent GmbH
zur Success-Story
“We knew that this was apsolut’s first project for a health insurance company, but that didn’t matter. Because apsolut always listened to us, understood our requirements and finally delivered solutions. We could design different processes for direct and indirect purchasing. Together we work professionally in state-of-the-art mode.”
Michael Spiess, Chief Procurement Officer, Sanitas Krankenversicherung
zur Success-Story
„We were able to roll out Ariba very quickly, because we established a pragmatic and open culture of cooperation with the apsolut team from the very beginning, and we were prepared to systematically align ourselves with the standard“,
Sarah Eve Wiedemann-Geiß, who oversees purchasing and supplier management at Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall
zur Success-Story
"A transformation program of this scale needs a strong internal team from Procurement and Internal IT, but of course also experienced and committed external partners. The most important aspect is that everyone then works together with passion and conviction towards the common goal. In addition to the strong know-how of the consulting implementation partner – in our case apsolut – a strong line of communication from the partner to the software supplier SAP is also necessary."
Martin Traxl, Head of Strategy & Digitalization, OMV
"When selecting our implementation partner, apsolut was able to prevail over internationally active competitors thanks to its excellent understanding of our requirements, openness in partnership, and great flexibility. Thanks to the very good cooperation with the apsolut team, we successfully completed the project and signed a support agreement for future developments."
Julia Graubner, Senior Procurement Project Manager, K+S
zur Success-Story
"Being able to design our purchasing processes flexibly, digitally and above all efficiently offers great added value. We will therefore continue to expand our system in the direction of SAP Ariba."
Armin Kaczmarek, Senior Vice President Corporate Purchasing, Vorwerk
zur Success-Story
"The mix of virtual design discussions, system demonstrations and break-out sessions, supported by best-in-class tools that allowed us to annotate and track tasks and decisions during screen sharing, enabled us to work closely with apsolut even though distances of up to 12,000 kilometres had to be bridged. We were very pleased that both our projects could be successfully implemented with the help of apsolut."
Alina Aftene, Procurement Solutions Specialist, Delivery Hero
"apsolut has been supporting us in the ope-ration of our SRM system for 10 years. It does not matter whether we report a problem in the production system or want to discuss change requests. We are contacted by apsolut in a timely manner to resolve our concerns or discuss our requirements in detail. apsolut always provides the important piece of securi-ty in the background - if anything goes wrong, they always help quickly and straightforwardly."
Torsten Enseroth, SAP S/4HANA Solution Architect, Friedhelm Loh Group
zur Success-Story
"With apsolut, we have gained a partner who has implemented our requirements effectively and efficiently in the configuration of Ariba in a practical manner and in a breathtaking amount of time. The customer-oriented approach was one of the main reasons why we also chose apsolut for the implementation of SLP and Contract Management."
Frank Unfried, Director Digitalization Purchasing & Indirect Spend bei Pfleiderer
zur Success-Story
"From the beginning of the project, we have made a remarkable change together with apsolut. The Döhler employees find their way through the easy user interface without any prior knowledge of SAP. As a result, our purchasing department is no longer an operational procurement office, but a team of in-house consultants."
Shibu Palakalodil, Projektleiter SAP Ariba-Implementierung
zur Success-Story
Your personal apsolut contact
Your personal apsolut contact
