Initial Situation
An internationally operating tech multinational with 15 locations (4 headquarters and 11 branches) is struggling with a fragmented, decentralised procurement landscape. Ordering happens in parallel across multiple channels: the central catalogue, Amazon Business, various external vendor portals, and even on-site vending machines for tools and consumables. Each department holds its own cost centre budget of between €1 million and €5 million per year, but a consolidated, real-time view of total spend simply does not exist.
Today, every business unit operates within „its" own systems, which means total spending across the corporation is opaque. The month-end close turns into a recurring bottleneck: the Finance team has to manually collect order data from the catalogue, Amazon Business invoices, vendor portals, and vending machine reports. This process consistently ties up 3 to 4 working days each month. Budget overruns are detected far too late, often only in the following month, when corrective action is no longer possible. Business units cannot pull their current spending themselves because no self-service reports or dashboards are available.
Your solution with simple system
simple system unifies all procurement channels on one neutral, cloud-based platform and gives Finance and business units full transparency over indirect spend, MRO, and C-parts purchasing across every location.
- All order channels integrated: catalogue, Amazon Business, and external vendor systems via the External System Connection module, creating one single source of truth for indirect procurement.
- Central budget definition per cost centre, easily configurable without IT involvement:
- Department HR: €300,000
- Department Finance: €400,000
- Department IT, Operations, and others as needed
- Consolidated reporting across all order channels, for example:
- Spent: €2,850,000 (81% of budget)
- Available: €650,000 (19% remaining)
- Proactive alerts that surface issues before they escalate, e.g. when a cost centre exceeds 80% of its budget or unusual order volumes appear.
- Self-service portals for every business unit, with role-based access to:
- Spending overview
- Budget consumption per month
- Top vendors and top categories
- Spending by channel (catalogue vs. Amazon Business vs. vending machines vs. external systems)
- Fully automated monthly reporting:
- All orders from all channels consolidated
- No more manual data collection
- Close time reduced from 3 to 4 days to under 2 hours
Result
Business units finally see their spending in real time, budget overruns are detected proactively, and the month-end close runs in a fraction of the previous time.
- Central budget visibility across all 15 locations
- Budget overruns are detected in advance, not retrospectively
- Faster month-end closes: 3 to 4 days reduced to under 2 hours (80% time savings)
- Better cost control through automated threshold alerts
- Decentralised ordering remains, but with central control and audit-ready documentation
- Business unit leaders pull data themselves, reducing ad-hoc requests to Finance
- Vendor negotiations benefit from consolidated volume transparency
Your Benefit
- Time savings: month-end closing from 3 to 4 days down to under 2 hours, an 80% reduction in effort.
- Measurable EBIT impact of more than €1.7 million per year: +€144,000 (closing) + €60,000 (fewer ad-hoc reports) + €500,000 to €1,500,000 (better budget control).
