Client
Salzgitter Digital Solutions offers IT services for the steel and tubes industry and provides companies with comprehensive support in the digitalization of their processes.
Starting Situation
Accounts payable accounting was to be standardized at all 30 Salzgitter AG subsidiaries, including Salzgitter Digital Solutions. A major challenge given the heterogeneous IT landscape and complex processes.
Solution
Doctra took on this task and supported the gradual centralization of accounts payable. To this end, the software and consulting specialist introduced OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions (VIM) and developed a master process for invoice processing. This ensures that all subsidiaries work uniformly after implementation.
Result
By replacing the old systems, Salzgitter benefits from greater efficiency throughout the company: all incoming invoices can now be processed digitally. There is virtually no need to distribute paper documents any more. In addition, automated processes such as OCR-supported data capture or approval workflows support the allocation, checking and posting of 300,000 invoices per year.
over 30 companies
and 300.000 invoices per year
with 3.000 user
Starting Situation
Each subsidiary had different requirements and processes that had grown over time. Standardizing these and at the same time taking local conditions into account is sometimes a challenging undertaking. What made things even more difficult at Salzgitter was the fact that the complexity of steel processing is also reflected in the IT landscape. While locally separate software solutions are not unusual, the parallel operation of different SAP versions was a rare peculiarity.
Several challenges came together in this major project: A heterogeneous software environment that could only be adapted to a limited extent and complex corporate structures in a highly regulated environment. Salzgitter was therefore looking for experts with extensive specialist knowledge, a deep understanding of processes and many years of experience in the corporate environment.
Solution
As part of the introduction of a shared service center, the way was clear for a uniform company-wide invoice processing system. All that was missing was a reliable partner to accompany the project from consulting to implementation.
Doctra met the high requirements. With its extensive experience in invoice management, the certified SAP and OpenText partner had everything it needed to successfully master the consolidation of accounts payable. The long-standing collaboration with the consulting firm has paid off for the steel expert: This is because Doctra acts on an equal footing - both with the top management at Salzgitter and with the software manufacturers. As a result, previous processes have been successfully optimized together and desired software adaptations have been implemented quickly.
“Doctra is a reliable partner with whom we have been working successfully for many years and who helps us to manage the complexity of our systems and processes.”
Arne Brinkmeier, Division Manager Salzgitter Digital Solutions GmbH
Collaboration
It took almost a year for OpenText VIM to go live in the first subsidiary. All further implementations were completed within a maximum of four months. The recipe for success? A comprehensive analysis of the current situation, which Doctra carried out at the very beginning of the project, was crucial to reliably complete the software implementation within this tight time frame. With this knowledge, the service provider specializing in OpenText and SAP was able to create a blueprint. This serves as a template on the basis of which the software is rolled out to all companies.
Result
As planned, the gradual introduction of OpenText VIM has replaced the numerous different approval processes in the subsidiaries and digitized invoice receipt. Intelligent workflows such as the automatic completion of booking fields or the system-controlled assignment to the right administrator ensure greater efficiency throughout the group.
- Standardized accounting processes for all subsidiaries
- Optimized processing of 300,000 invoices per year
- User-friendly software for over 3,000 users
- Automatic reading of invoice data using OCR text recognition
- Reduced processing times due to fewer manual processing steps
- Long-standing partnership between Salzgitter and Doctra
- Doctra as a partner at eye level and with a direct line to the manufacturers SAP and OpenText
Outlook
Over the past few years, Salzgitter and Doctra have successfully implemented the majority of the planned project scope together and seamlessly connected it to the centralized accounts payable system. The stable operation of the solution across the systems and components used shows that the partnership has been successful to date.
Client
Salzgitter Digital Solutions was founded in 1989 and is one of Germany's leading IT service providers in the fields of steel production and processing, trade and technology. As a subsidiary of Salzgitter AG, the IT service provider employs 500 people at its sites in Salzgitter, Mülheim, Ilsenburg and Peine.
