80% time savings in supplier management through digitization
published on
30.11.2023
🏗 Industry: Chemicals (focus: automotive industry )
🗺 Company headquarters: Neuburg an der Donau (Bavaria)
🧍 Employees: ~ 420
👥 Employees in procurement: 20
💶 Turnover ~ € 144 million per year
For 70 years, SONAX has stood for a strong brand in car care and develops as well as produces almost all of its cleaning and care products itself in Neuburg. SONAX GmbH is part of the Hoffmann Group and has a wholly owned subsidiary: DuroDruck GmbH. Started as a pioneer in car care, SONAX is now also a premium product manufacturer in the bicycle as well as caravan industry. The company also opened up other markets, in the agricultural industry, forestry and construction. SONAX is positioned as the German and Austrian market leader in its sector and is continuously working on new solutions, applications and products for its customers.
"We didn't need a tool that required us to invest 100 hours; we needed 'plug & play,' and that's 100% what Tacto provides." - Dr. Burghart, Chief Procurement Officer
"In 2015, Dr. Burghart, Chief Procurement Officer of SONAX GmbH, set the goal of automating and digitizing procurement processes at SONAX. Electronic procurement was intended to significantly reduce the existing time spent on manual tasks and create more room for strategic projects and procurement-related topics."
As a company in the chemical industry, SONAX places particularly high demands on its suppliers, which must be met for compliance reasons. These include, among other things, a code of conduct or certain ISO certifications, which the suppliers must always have updated. SONAX had to conduct these Rfx manually with over 300 suppliers (together with the Hoffmann Group even with over 400 suppliers) by "sending back and forth" e-mails. In addition, individual AEBs (General Terms and Conditions of Procurement) were sent to the suppliers by e-mail. As a result, the e-mail inboxes of the employees in procurement were flooded!
The various Rfx statuses were documented in a very comprehensive Excel table. The request status was noted using color coding. Archived in the electronic Leitz folder (ELO), the data then had to be entered into the ERP system so that reports could finally be generated from the ERP system. This process was not only massively time-consuming, but also harbored the risk of errors in the ERP system.
Due to the fact that SONAX's heavily utilized IT hardly had any free resources, the only option was to introduce system-side support that required hardly any IT resources. For a long time, however, no suitable tool was found for SONAX that could handle the multitude of existing processes in an uncomplicated manner and without significant effort for IT and employees.
Automate and digitize manual and recurring activities regarding supplier queries of various certificates (CoC, ISO, REACH, etc.)
Create free capacity in procurement to focus on strategic projects
Lean implementation of the tool and automation of the processes without IT involvement
And then Tacto came: Finally, a tool with which the transformation to electronic procurement can succeed. The digitization of core processes along the supplier management and increased data transparency could be implemented within a few weeks after quick and easy implementation. Tacto fits SONAX's requirements perfectly and, in contrast to other tools, kept the IT effort very low.
"We didn't need a tool that we have to invest 100 hours in, we needed 'plug and play' - and that's 100% given with Tacto."
Tacto makes it possible to view all information on suppliers in one place and thus creates an overview and transparency of the data volume. In addition, a wide range of supplier requests, from the Code of Conduct to any ISO certifications, could be fully automated. Comprehensive automation means that all steps from sending out queries to sending reminders to suppliers are covered by Tacto. SONAX estimates the time savings achieved as a result to be 80% compared to the previous manual supplier request.
The implementation of Tacto went smoothly and without effort. IT only had to spend 10 minutes to make the data available. The procurement team is also enthusiastic about Tacto and describes the tool as "user-friendly, simple & facilitating". The use of Tacto at SONAX so far shows that the suppliers accept the tool very well and also benefit from the high user-friendliness. Their consistently positive feedback emphasizes in particular the ease of use.
"One link and an email address - then I was already registered, super uncomplicated." - Mr. Demirtas, Key User Tacto
80% time savings through the digitization of supplier requests and certificate management, along with automatic reminders
Very intuitive usability across all user levels
Freeing up capabilities for strategic initiatives in procurement through significant time savings in supplier management
The cooperation with Tacto is characterized by transparency, honesty and dynamism. Above all, SONAX appreciates the clear information about the individual modules and functions of Tacto. As soon as Tacto announces a new function, it can directly be implemented. Proactively and dynamically, Tacto works together with SONAX on sending out supplier requests and opens up further optimization potential.
"What I particularly liked is that Tacto has said from the beginning that the company wants to learn from our requirements in order to develop Tacto even further so that we can grow together."
In the case of occasional uncertainties, Tacto's customer support is always available and directly addresses the issue so that it can be solved immediately.
"One time I didn't know where the current query was - our contact person was right there to help me out."
SONAX is very positive about the joint future with Tacto. The medium-term goal is to further increase the massive time savings and invest the time gained in strategic topics.
"We see great potential to expand the use of Tacto."
In the long term, SONAX would like to develop risk management applications for procurement together with Tacto. Procurement risks are to be recorded in the tool in the future. This will allow a significant part of the current organizational effort in the procurement department to be handled via Tacto.
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Many thanks to Ms. Dr. Burghart, Mr. Demirtas and the entire team of SONAX for our partnership and trustworthy cooperation.
Through partners and customers like you, it is possible to further develop our product in close exchange and close to the daily business, as well as to talk in joint webinars about the topics that concern the procurement of medium-sized industrial companies today.
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