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Call for change

After spinning off from a chemicals giant, a leading chemical company found itself in need of a first-class procurement function.​

The client recognized its procurement function needed to change to work faster and smarter. As a smaller organization, it could no longer rely on the market leverage that came with being part of a larger company.​

Despite employees repeatedly going the extra mile, it needed to make its inherited procurement processes more productive and effective. That included simplifying the tools and processes the business used for procurement, reducing the number of steps involved and making better use of negotiated terms and pricing. Ensuring higher invoice accuracy and reducing the time spent resolving exceptions (this amounted to 50,000 hours of effort each year). And helping its Accounts Payable department perform better, ensuring suppliers were paid on–time (over 30 percent of invoices were being paid late).​

When tech meets human ingenuity

The company reconfigured the procurement process by using SynOps to bring together data insights, digital technologies and human talent to better support business needs.​​

Revamped end-to-end source-to-pay

Implemented new data-driven tools, systems and processes.

Improved experience​

Engaged suppliers, business users and IT to embed seamless, accurate, touchless procurement, improving accuracy and increasing invoice automation.

Introduced user-centric buying tools ​

Developed a suite of user-friendly buying tools, which transformed a laborious 20-minute purchasing process into a quick and easy 3-min experience.

A valuable difference

This global chemicals company has truly embedded an agile “startup” mindset into its procurement function. It has deconstructed an underperforming set of inherited processes and reconfigured them in a user-friendly and streamlined form. The results–and the pace at which they’ve been achieved–have been remarkable.

$350M

spend under management which increases procurement’s influence on spend.

$24M

cost savings to reinvest in business growth.

50%

decrease in requisition to purchase order cycle time (from 8 days to 4) which leads to faster turnaround time.

87%

on-time supplier payment (increased from 60%), which resolved a major source of friction between procurement, the business and suppliers.

40%

of invoices are now electronic, which increased productivity and accuracy.​

80,000

hours of productivity released back to the business through streamlined procure-to-pay processes and technology.

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