Belimed: Automation of manual and operational activities in procurement
published on
30.11.2023
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🏗 Industry: Mechanical engineering (manufacture of medical equipment)
🗺 Company headquarters: Sulgen (Switzerland)
🧍 Employees: ~ 280
👥 Employees in procurement: 10
💶 Turnover approx. € 40 million per year
🧰 Procurement volume: approx. €25 million per year
Belimed Life Science AG, a subsidiary of the Metall Zug Group, was spun off from Belimed AG in April 2019 with the aim of focusing on customer needs in the pharmaceutical industry. As an internationally active company with 50 years of experience in the construction of sterilizers and washing systems for the pharmaceutical and food industries, Belimed Life Science is one of the innovation leaders and pioneers in the industry.
"After the spin-off, we had a lot of bad master data. Tacto, through automated supplier requests, helps tremendously to enrich our master data in the system, without much effort, ensuring the quality of the data." - Zvjezdan Garic, Head of Supply Chain
The spin-off enabled Belimed Life Science to benefit from the advantages of an SME: shorter paths, faster processes, more efficient project management. At the same time, however, the spin-off was also the starting signal for the establishment of a new procurement organization and the challenge of building up procurement from scratch. Since Belimed Life Science is still a very young company and can only muster limited (IT) resources, the main task was to set up core processes in procurement as quickly as possible and without the huge expenditure of resources, as well as to create transparency about procurement activities.
In addition, Belimed Life Science AG experienced enormous growth through COVID, which quickly changed requirements for processes, data transparency, and strategic control options: processes were outdated and non-standardized, and procurement activities were unorganized and incomplete.
For example, there were incomplete and outdated master and procurement data from the time in the corporate group and from the SAP system. In order to find out certain key figures, Zvjezdan regularly had to export SAP data, merge different data sets and prepare them in Excel in a time-consuming process. This usually took one day per week for data evaluations and analyses.
In addition, supplier management, onboarding, and the administration of supplier information were still very operative and characterized by Excel. For example, the process around the supplier self-disclosure was very time-consuming and characterized by many system breaks: Suppliers could fill out the supplier self-disclosure via PDF on the homepage, which then had to be transferred to Excel by the procurement department in order to be able to enter it into the SAP system. In addition, there was no overview of the suppliers' certificates; they often have been expired and the query with suppliers was characterized by mail ping-pong. The qualification and evaluation of the nearly 500 suppliers took place in Excel and was virtually impossible to implement by the small and young procurement department. The Excel-based evaluation of the underlying criteria, such as delivery performance and price performance, took almost 1 day per month.
System-side support for the specific needs of a fast-growing medium-sized industrial business was essential. However, no tool could really support: too complex, too resource-intensive implementation projects or simply not added value.
Build strategic core processes in procurement from scratch (data transparency and process automation)
Improve master data quality from the SAP system
Quickly & easily introduce system-side support in procurement without the huge outlay of resources
With Tacto, however, the breakthrough came: The digitization of core processes and data transparency could be realized within a few weeks after a quick and easy implementation - without any IT resources at all.
With Tacto, for example, it was possible to overview procurement activities with one click and to see all numbers, data and facts about suppliers, articles and categories at a glance, as well as to transparently track price developments and delivery times. This made it possible to prepare for supplier meetings and identify price outliers or unnoticed scale prices without much effort.
In addition, Belimed Life Science can map the entire supplier management from onboarding to administration to qualification in Tacto. For example, new suppliers can be qualified at one click by inviting them directly via Tacto. In this way, entire onboarding processes with supplier self-disclosure and certificates can be handled in a structured manner - including an automated reminder function.
"We onboard 4-5 new suppliers per month. With Tacto, we save ourselves 30-60 min of time per supplier."
The automated supplier requests give suppliers the opportunity to independently maintain important information, certificates and master data, enabling Belimed Life Science to significantly improve master data quality.
"Following the Pareto principle, Tacto is extremely supportive in helping us update suppliers and your data."
The improvements brought about by the agreement of the process and data world in supplier management form the basis for Belimed Life Science to strategically develop their suppliers. For example, supplier reduction is a major issue for 500 suppliers. With Tacto, there is now a transparent and complete basis for taking targeted measures based on sales development, number of suppliers in categories, delivery times and many other factors.
"With Tacto, I can locate which suppliers are relevant in just a few clicks and answer questions about whether I need 10 suppliers in a commodity group or 2 would be enough."
70% time savings through the automation of operational and Excel-based core processes, as well as data and output transparency at the push of a button
80% time savings through a structured and digitized supplier management, from onboarding to certificate management, qualification, and evaluation
A transparent and reliable foundation for implementing targeted measures for the strategic and sustainable development of the supplier portfolio
Particularly convincing is, in addition to the simple and fast connection of the employees, also cross-company (controlling) intuitive and simple operation of the software.
"Where other tools require training, with Tacto everything is self-explanatory."
In addition, Belimed Life Science appreciates the individual support as well as the close and cooperative collaboration with flexible co-design ability on the product.
"You guys are a super personable team, just a lot of fun to work with!"
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THANKS
Many thanks to Zvedi and Belimed Life Science for our partnership and trustworthy cooperation. Through customers and partners like you, it is possible to further develop our product in close exchange and close to the daily business, with the goal of making procurement organizations future-proof. We are already looking forward to the further journey together with you.
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