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Implementation of SAP Ariba Buying & Invoicing at McKesson
CompanyMcKesson Europe
BranchPharmaceutical Wholesale
ProductsHealth Services
Number of employees> 38,000
Turnover21,18 bn. €
HeadquartersStuttgart, Germany
Websitewww.mckesson.eu
From workshop service provider to implementation partner
McKesson Europe, a leading international pharmaceutical wholesaler with almost 38,000 employees, was faced with the challenge of replacing the previous e-Procurement solution for three non-harmonized business units. McKesson was convinced by apsolut’s highly qualified service provider team with its strong technical expertise, know-how, and flexibility - the latter in particular proved to be extremely helpful during the course of the project.
McKesson initially engaged apsolut to prepare the project workshops and provide functional support - apsolut’s project involvement was therefore initially quite low. However, apsolut quickly developed into an implementation partner: For the first time, the service provider provided functional support to McKesson during the design phase and conducted the workshops for all three business units (Gehe, McKesson Europe AG, and OCP in France) in parallel - a challenge that requires flexibility and expertise. apsolut was also able to prove its worth in this project, both in terms of integration and project management.
The connection of three ERP systems with completely differrent initial architecture turned out to be a challenge: Each of the ERP systems was to be connected to a SAP Ariba-Child realm with a different scope - for Germany in the P2O area and for France in the P2P area. In the latter case, the complete invoice entry and invoice processing process was thus implemented in addition to order processing. In addition, the open ICS interface was also configured for the French business unit, so that scanned invoices are also digitized by an external OCR provider and further processed in Ariba. One of the ERP systems already contained a fully implemented MM system, while a Light MM system was set up at the second ERP system, which did not have an MM system. The third ERP system, also lacking an MM system, was also connected to the Ariba Realm. Even if no transaction data is exchanged here, the ERP system remains the leading system for master data and enables its automated upload. Despite different system architectures, a high degree of integration and automation was created.
Annette Römer, project manager at McKesson Europe AG, looks back on the project very positively:
"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!"
After the go-live, apsolut continued to support McKesson as a support service provider for incident management.
3
SAP ERP systems with completely different starting points
Creation of a template for further European countries
Implemented tools
SAP Ariba Buying
Open ICS Interface
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