Initial Situation
An internationally operating tech multinational with 15 locations (4 headquarters + 11 branches) has decentralized ordering: catalog, Amazon Business, external vendor portals, vending machines. Cost center budgets per department: €1-5M/year. Today: No central budget monitoring. Each department has "its" systems, but total spending is unclear. Month-end close: Finance manually collects data from catalog, Amazon, vendor invoices, machines – 3-4 days of work. Budget overruns are detected too late (often only in the following month). Business units cannot retrieve their current spending (no self-service reports).
Your Solution with simple system
- All order channels are integrated: Catalog + Amazon Business + external systems (External System Connection)
- Central budget definition per cost center is easily configurable:
- Department HR: €300,000
- Department Finance: €400,000
- etc.
- Consolidated Reporting across All Order Channels shows information such as:
- Spent: €2,850,000 (81% of budget)
- Available: €650,000 (19% remaining)
- Alerts such as the following help identify issues:
- Cost center exceeds 80% of budget
- Self-service portals for every business unit:
- Spending overview
- Budget consumption per month
- Top vendors / top categories
- Spending by channel (catalog vs. Amazon vs. vending machines vs. other)
- Fully automated monthly reporting:
- All orders from all channels consolidated
- No more manual data collection
- Close time: from 3-4 days to <2 hours
Result: • Central budget visibility: Business units see spending
- Budget overruns are detected in advance
- Faster month-end closes: 3-4 days → <2 hours (80% time savings)
- Better cost control through alerts
- Decentralized ordering remains, but with central control
- Business unit leaders can pull data themselves (fewer requests to Finance)
- Vendor negotiations benefit from volume transparency
Your Benefit
- Time savings: Month-end closing from 3-4 days to <2 hours = 80% time savings
- EBIT impact: +€144,000/year (closing) + €60,000/year (fewer ad-hoc reports) + €500,000-1,500,000/year (better budget control) = +€1.7M/year
