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Optimization of the K+S Procurement Platform through SAP Ariba Implementation
Company
K+S
Branch
Mining
Products
Fertilizers and specialty salts
Number of employees
>14.000
Turnover
4.07 billion €
Headquarters
Kassel, Deutschland
Websitewww.kpluss.com
Standard + Customisation + Interfaces = Needs-based process landscape
A major advantage of a cloud solution is its standardization, which generates comparatively low maintenance require-ments and enables the automatic provision of software updates. At the same time, this standardization can be a major challenge, because a fundamental question is often how individual adjustments can be made despite standards. Together with SAP and an international team from the K+S Group, apsolut has implemented many of these adaptations, also known as customizations, for the customer’s SAP Ariba Suite, thus once again demonstrating its innovative strength. The most important customizations are described below:
While standard orders are sent directly from SAP Ariba to the SAP Ariba network, K+S required orders to be sent first to the ERP back end, and from there to the SAP Ariba Network together with other ERP orders. Previously, it was not possible to send SpotBuy orders in this integration scenario. To solve this challenge, apsolut has made adjustments to the CIG in-terface that will be incorporated in future customer projects.
apsolut has also made a further adjustment to the standard in the approval workflow: While only fully approved purchase orders can be sent to the back end in the stan-dard system, K+S also wanted to enable free text purchase requisitions to be sent to the SAP back end for further processing. This was made possible by an innovative development from apsolut.
To map specific business processes outside the standard, apsolut has also developed several new customer fields in collaboration with SAP. For example, due to the size of the plants, it is often not sufficient for K+S to provide a standard delivery address. Within a plant, the so-called unloading point is very important to ensure reliable delivery to the desired destination. For this purpose, a customer field has been provided which allows each user to select an unloading point depending on the plant.
Although K+S does not use the SAP Ariba Contracts tool, the release of Service Contracts via Guided Buying should be made possible. The difficulty: In the standard process, each contract loaded in SAP Ariba Buying is automatically assigned an Ariba-specific contract ID, which cannot be assigned to any SAP contract when exporting a contract release order in the back end. The solution: apsolut has developed an interface that allows SAP contracts to be replicated in SAP Ariba Buying and the SAP contract ID to be exported. As a result, each contract called off in Guided Buying is automatically assigned to the relevant contract in the back end.
apsolut also provided a customized response to a chal-lenge relating to the SAP Plant Maintenance module, SAP PM for short: K+S wanted to prevent purchase requisitions for non-catalog items using SAP Ariba Buying, which is linked to SAP PM. In the standard system, however, it is only possible either to prohibit purchase requisitions for non-catalog items completely or to allow them for each scenario. Together with SAP, apsolut has developed a logic that checks whether a user is accessing the Ariba Suite from SAP PM. If this is the case, the Creation of a non-catalog requisition is automatically disabled.
"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."
explains Julia Graubner, Senior Procurement Project Manager at K+S.
Global project management across four time zones (Central Standard Time, Eastern Standard Time, Central European Time, Indian Standard Time)
Following the successful go-live, apsolut was awarded the support contract
Implemented tools
SAP Ariba Buying
SAP Ariba Catalog
SAP Ariba Guided Buying
SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance
SAP Ariba Commerce Automation
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Jane Wanger, Global Procurement Systems & Support bei KSB
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Annette Römer, Project Manager, McKesson Europe AG
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Ketylin Morello, Purchasing Strategy and Market Intelligence & Functional Product Owner for Squando, Schaeffler
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"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
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"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
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“After the first Ariba roll-outs, we continued to work with apsolut to jointly develop our Ariba Suite. We usually work together at eye level, and I appreciate apsolut’s open and honest advice. I always have the feeling that the best solution for the customer is their guiding principle. This level of honesty is what led us to working together for so long.”
Małgorzata Pośpiech, SCM Process Manager, JOYNEXT
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"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
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„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
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“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
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"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
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"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
“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
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"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
“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
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‘With its flexible and transparent procedure, apsolut perfectly complemented our own limited personnel resources. Together, we were able to address topics like multi-line items or dependencies with other tools. It’s unbelievable how much knowledge and expertise we were able to gain,’
Regina Krüger-Wendel, Chief Procurement Officer, Atruvia
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"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
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„apsolut not only guided us through the project with the utmost professionalism and a proactive approach – the decisive factor was that apsolut enabled us to operate the new tool independently and to manage the next steps ourselves. apsolut’s employees quickly familiarised themselves with our system and processes, which made it easier for us to achieve the project goals within the given timeframe. I would also like to praise their flexibility in adapting to changes and their flexibility in implementation, with clear communication and excellent project management. We look forward to benefiting from this expertise more often.”
Zinah Matar, Digital Business Development Manager, Juffali Commercial Vehicles
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"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
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„Despite all the digitalisation and automation, we still work in a people business. During this project, we have grown into such a resilient, unified team that we’ve managed to meet all of our deadlines up to this point, even though some of them were quite ambitious. Ultimately, that also motivates everyone involved to do their part in driving the project forward!“
Simon Bohn, Global Solution Architect Procure to Pay, STIHL
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“To be quite honest: I have experienced so many IT projects in the past where the ambitious original goals were eroded bit by bit. But this time, it was different because apsolut worked very systematically and always intervened promptly when something threatened to get out of hand,”
Thomas Henzler, Chief Information Officer, PILLER Blowers & Compressors
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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„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
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“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
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"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
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"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
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„Every time we came up against an unexpected challenge during the course of the project, apsolut immediately showed up possible options to resolve the issue. We always knew to what extent we had freedom of movement within the constraints of the cloud solution.”
Linna Krasnikov, SCC System Administrator, Kärcher
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‘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
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"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
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