Uralkali automated procurement processes based on the SAP Ariba solution

2021: Automate procurement and contracting processes

On October 21, 2021, SAP CIS announced that Uralkali automated the procurement and contracting processes based on SAP Ariba, the project became part of strategies for digitalization of the company's business. The implementation partner was the company. TerraLink A single ecosystem of communication with suppliers and contractors, in which all interactions are digitized, provides high traceability data and eliminates the influence of the human factor. According to the information company, as a result of the introduction, Uralkali achieved a decrease in purchase prices by 7% due to increased competition among suppliers and contractors.

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{{quote 'author
= says Dmitry Boyarkin, procurement director of Uralkali.|"Before the start of the project, the procurement process mainly consisted of manual operations and manual data processing: manual invitations were sent to suppliers, commercial proposals were considered, documents were prepared, orders were created and contracts were formed. All this negatively affected the transparency of procedures, increased labor intensity and provoked errors, and also delayed the entire procurement cycle. We needed a system that would digitalize the interaction of services within the company and translate work with external counterparties into electronic form, we settled on SAP Ariba.

As a result of the project, Uralkali introduced a procurement management system that excludes the influence of the human factor and error, as well as directly influencing the business of the company as a whole and each employee individually. An effective and technological tool for developing competition and reducing procurement prices has been obtained, "-}}

{{quote 'author
= says Alexey Chernyshev, Deputy Director of Procurement, Uralkali, Project Manager.|"Using the cloud solution reduced the time for deployment and commissioning: the system began to be used 6 months after the start of the project, in addition, it is available remotely without loss of quality and functionality. Now the purchasing requirement is automatically transferred to the system, the category managers consolidate the requirements lines in the purchasing procedures, then the purchasing specialists collect requisitions by category and conduct the purchasing projects according to the configured templates, after which an order is created and a contract is formed. In a single system for the procurement procedure, the contract is agreed and signed. All these operations do not require Uralkali specialists to manually transfer data, this reduces the labor intensity and timing of purchases, eliminates manual entry errors. The data is stored in the purchasing project and is available for further analysis and monitoring. At the same time, the supplier base is replenished and maintained in a single solution. Future plans include setting up procurement project templates by purchasing category and creating a marketplace based on SAP Ariba, "-}}

"The SAP Ariba cloud solution will allow Uralkali to conduct purchases at the right pace, take into account all industry trends, monitor and control processes, while offloading employees from the routine and allowing them to focus on tasks that require more attention," notes Andrey Filatov, CEO of SAP CIS.

"In an ever-changing world, how quickly a relevant solution can be deployed is of great importance. It is no longer possible to spend several years on implementation, during which time current requirements become obsolete and the following appear. Thanks to the choice of a cloud solution, the project was implemented in a short time, and Uralkali, six months after the start of the project, was able to get results from the procurement management process on the SAP Ariba platform, "- says Andrey Krechuk, deputy managing director of TerraLink.