msg group
Procurement integration with Amazon Business helps centralize spend at msg group.
Overview
With more than 10,000 employees all over the world, msg group offers systems integrations consulting for accounting, finance, regulatory reporting, performance management, customer experience and IoT technology needs. Headquartered in Germany with clients in industries ranging from automotive manufacturing to banking, msg sought to streamline purchasing for its growing and geographically distributed workforce. msg worked with Amazon Business to integrate with SAP Ariba, creating a direct source of supply for its workforce with spend policies and approvals mapping to a procurement system.
Centralizing tail spend across a decentralized workforce
As more of the msg team began to work from home and the company continued to grow in headcount to meet client needs, centralizing spend and saving time corralling expenses became a priority for several internal departments. To simplify business buying, they discovered their need for automated approvals workflows according to their spend policies.
Rather than having the procurement leaders order IT accessories, office supplies and literature for employees, Christiane Rimat, msg’s Head of Procurement, aimed to empower employees across departments to self-service their own purchasing while simultaneously providing the procurement team visibility into these transactions.
Creating a fast, easy to use mechanism for business buying was their first goal. To initially create a direct connection from Amazon Business to msg’s procurement system, SAP Ariba, the msg team set up Amazon Business’ Punchout integration, which allows users to punchout from SAP Ariba to Amazon Business’ wide selection of products. Then msg chose to also tap Amazon Business’ Integrated Search integration, which allows users to search Amazon Business products directly from the SAP Ariba environment.
“By already having Punchout in place, setting up Integrated Search was very easy, with the help of the documentation provided by Amazon Business and the specialists on their side.”
— Karlheinz Graf, Senior Project Manager, msg group
Before msg implemented SAP Ariba, the msg team performed extensive testing internally to benchmark about how long it took employees to place orders, from the beginning of a product search to the final receipt entry for reimbursement.
“This was significantly faster with Punchout, on average cutting the time spent in half, and thus a significant reduction in our process costs,” Graf said. With Integrated Search, the team found they spent less time comparison shopping and also accessed cost savings.
Learn more about Punchout and Integrated Search
