Downloads - empirica

e-Business in the chemical, rubber and plastics industryDuring the supplier enrolment phase, because Acordis were an early adopter and therewas little 3rd party information available on OB10, or indeed the fundamental service ofelectronic invoicing, most of the Acordis suppliers contacted Acordis directly to discussthe request. These contacts were handled by the Acordis senior Purchasing and AP staffwith considerable success. Initially, for the first 6 months, it was a regular feature of theirdaily work, but this gradually declined over months 7-12 of the project.Acordis completed the initial scope of the project with OB10, for PO backed invoices,mostly in the category of goods-for-production within the planned timeframe as seen inthe accompanying chart. Acordis did have plans to roll out this project to other groups ofsuppliers (e.g. MRO), but because of competing projects and other business prioritiesthey were put on hold temporarily. Subsequently the acquisition of Acordis by theCelanese Corporation and a resultant conversion to a unified ERP system, plus therelocation of all Accounts Payable (A/P) into one location elsewhere in Europe, hasresulted in not yet having initiated a similar campaign for other groups of suppliers.Acordis had been able to specify in all tenders to new suppliers that the delivery of theinvoice through OB10 be a condition of contract.Acordis had a parallel project at the same time to remove paper from the requisitionprocess. This did not impact the OB10 project, other than further reduce paper usage inthe company facility.One of the main visible benefits seen by Acordis was the reduction in A/P departmentsites from three to two; a major reduction in the number of invoice queries outstanding; asignificant reduction in their photocopying costs; further, archiving costs of documentshave now dropped dramatically as OB10 supply this functionality to Acordis.Acordis stated that one of the biggest challenges with this project was the cultureadjustment by their employees in the impacted departments (A/P) in not handling piecesof paper in their daily duties. Today the Acordis AP department is a very different place,with a lot less paper waiting for processing and the AP team dealing with invoiceexceptions, and price or delivery queries predominantly. Because Acordis payelectronically, a high percentage of their complete transactions now processautomatically, without any human intervention, to the satisfaction of all parties.Acordis quoted that “They felt they had done their homework carefully in selecting a nearglobal, tax compliant vendor as partner for the project. By the time the project was up andrunning smoothly we were able to say that ALL our expectations were met, and therewere no surprises, the best sort of project”.Lessons learned – from the perspective of OB10Today, at OB10 they recognise that if the Acordis campaign were to be executed in thecurrent, more informed B2B climate, the project would be completed in an even shortertimeframe and therefore be considered more successful. OB10 has meanwhile executedhundreds of such campaigns, and the concept of an electronic invoice delivery service iswell accepted in business circles, with OB10 being well represented. Acordis were withinthe first 10 buyers to adopt e-invoicing. This helped OB10 grow their credentials as aquality service provider bringing this innovative new service to the market.138