Flint Group Transforms Procurement with SAP Ariba Solutions

 SAP announced that Flint Group, one of the largest suppliers of inks, digital printing presses, and other products to the printing and packaging industry, centralized and digitalized its indirect materials and services procurement processes with SAP Ariba solutions. As a result, the company has increased efficiency, reduced costs, and gained greater control over its spending.

SAP Ariba solutions replaced Flint Group’s manual procure-to-pay processes, which required individual purchase orders for each supplier. With a single, unified platform in the cloud, the company standardized its purchasing process enterprise-wide and made buying, invoicing, and accounting easier and more transparent for employees, suppliers, managers, and accounts payable.

“We have vastly improved our employees’ buying experience and process efficiency with our shift to the cloud and implementation of the SAP Ariba solutions,” said Arno de Groot, vice president, Procurement Packaging, Flint Group. “What’s more, with a complete unified procurement system, we have greater visibility into spend, enabling more informed buying decisions and a positive effect on our bottom line.”

Flint Group operates in more than 130 centers across six continents and works with a vast and diverse network of suppliers to deliver for its customers. Prior to implementing SAP Ariba solutions, the group’s indirect procurement was complex and time-consuming. The lack of spend transparency and inconsistent data resulted in an incomplete view of costs and an inability to make well-informed buying decisions. Now with SAP Ariba solutions in place and integrated to the company’s SAP ERP application, Flint Group has been able to:

• Empower its employees with an intuitive user experience to make guided buying decisions while reducing maverick spend
• Improve compliance, accounting accuracy and its accounts payable process with a PO attached to nearly every invoice
• Institute a preferred supplier program, reducing its vendor base and helping to maximize incentives and rebates while improving the supplier experience
• Gain visibility into existing stock, making it possible to avoid duplicate and unnecessary purchases

Find out more about Flint Group’s digital transformation here.