Würth simplifies procurement process for pick-up shops with Wucato
Since March 2020, around 500 pick-up shops of Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG have been connected to our central procurement platform Wucato. This creates greater efficiency and transparency for procurement throughout the companies in the Group.
SMEs and large corporations have already recognized the need for digital solutions for procurement, whereas smaller companies are still struggling – according to the management summary of the study conducted by the German Association of Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics (BME) entitled "Electronic Procurement Barometer 2019". According to the study, only around twelve percent of all German companies can access different catalogs and alternative suppliers centrally. However, just under half of all 264 respondents from the procurement sector are making plans to allow this. "For the digital transformation of entire value and supply chains to succeed, procurement, supply chain management and logistics have to work together to drive the associated innovations," said BME Managing Director Dr. Silvius Grobosch when the study was unveiled in March 2019. This applies in particular to the use of solutions such as digital platforms, he added.
This was Würth’s experience, too. Thomas Egner, who is responsible for the procurement of capital goods & operating materials, confirms the team approach: "The introduction of company-wide procurement system for operating materials can only work if all stakeholders are involved in the project." At Würth, an interdisciplinary project team analyzed the need for operating materials and the requirements of employees in around 500 pick-up shops, and examined where manual work and analog workflows could be made more efficient thanks to digital processes. "Right from the start, we got procurement, accounting and IT specialists on board, not to mention the pick-up shops themselves. This allowed us first of all to meet the demand for greater cost-effectiveness and transparency, but second, we were also able to take into account users’ ideas and wishes when selecting a suitable solution."
One of the objectives of Würth's procurement department in its search for a cross-company solution was to ensure that all data generated as part of the ordering process could be processed digitally in-house. This eliminates the need to process documents manually, taking some of the strain off the Accounting department. This step involves a considerable amount of work for a company the size of Würth: every year, Procurement receives more than 70,000 purchasing documents from the approximately 500 pick-up shops, all of which have to be checked, processed and cleared manually via the cash register. As well as reducing manual effort, digitalizing the data brings another advantage: corresponding analyses allows Procurement to pick up on what is actually needed in the field and then search specifically for the ideal product solutions, for which volume discounts can then be negotiated.
At Würth, procurement runs on one platform: Wucato
When digitalizing the procurement of operating materials, the project team at Würth paid particular attention to ensuring that the platform could be easily adapted to suit the specific requirements of the Würth pick-up shops. Working in close cooperation with Würth, our sales experts at Wucato successfully implemented the requirements set out by the Würth project team, for example the individual ordering options for the pick-up shops in terms of suppliers and the assortment.
All Wucato functions at a glance
Together with the Procurement department, the Würth pick-up shops decide which suppliers to work with on the platform. In addition, our team has already set up negotiated conditions in the system so that they can be used digitally as well. Strategic Procurement at Würth also benefits from hiding suppliers or assortments in order to create a uniform demand-based and purchasing-optimized procurement system for all branches. Orders are placed at the click of a mouse and are usually delivered within one to three working days by selected logistics partners. All documents created, such as order confirmations, invoices or delivery notes, are transferred automatically to Würth's own systems via an EDI connection.
Rollout completed successfully
The launch of Wucato at Würth started with a pilot phase in which 16 pick-up shops were initially connected to the procurement platform from mid-2019 onwards. The experience gleaned as part of this process helped the project team to further optimize the platform to suit the needs of the pick-up shops. Finally, by the first quarter of 2020, the system had been rolled out to the approximately 500 other Würth pick-up shops, establishing the digital procurement of operating materials throughout the company.
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