Handling scale and complexity
The opportunity: Delivering a modern procure-to-pay solution fit for the organization
FTSE100 company and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca needed to overhaul the way it ran its buying process across 11 key markets for 35,000 users and US$9bn spend with 20,000+ suppliers. Operating with eight instances of a procure-to-pay (P2P) platform was hampering AstraZeneca’s visibility of their supplier relationships, and had inefficiencies baked in - especially around handling local taxation rules.
"There were two impacts on the business that we were looking to address" said Alastair Smith, AstraZeneca’s Change Management & Supplier Enablement Lead. "The first, making sure that AstraZeneca is a great place to work for our employees and our scientists. The second is making sure that our relationships with our suppliers are as efficient and effective as they could possibly be."
AstraZeneca turned to KPMG in the UK to deploy KPMG Powered Enterprise Procurement enabled by Coupa, that could deliver a step-change in the user experience and provide multi-functional and multi-geographical requirements aligned around a core global design and process.
KPMG really understood the landscape we had, as well as the landscape that we were looking to deploy and change. We worked incredibly well with the finance and IT community to deliver a solution which, in the long term, will prove to be the right solution.
Our response: A global P2P platform, handling local nuances
Having started with a readiness assessment, AstraZeneca brought together a number of key stakeholders from across the globe to formally launch the program with a KPMG Ignition event. A pre-mobilization phase - designed to lower project risk - included a detailed program plan (considering the impact of interlinked projects), data assessment and preparations for data cleansing, supplier and channel analysis across 20,000 suppliers, and creation of cross-functional governance to drive decisions at pace.
The Powered Procurement technology enabled by Coupa, had five design principles agreed upon:
- User experience paramount to the design
- Supplier engagement and simplicity a priority
- Adopt, not adapt – i.e. no need to customize best practice
- A single standardized core global design
- Enablement of world-class procurement
The outcome: Much more impactful procurement strategies
AstraZeneca was determined to design and deliver a standard global process (on a single instance), while accounting for local regulatory, tax and legal matters. KPMG member firms leveraged their local expertise to help overcome local regulatory challenges.
85% of P2P transactions are now fully digital. Enhanced accuracy and automation of indirect tax processes have led to requisition-to-order time halving on average, with invoice approval time down by around 75%.
Alastair Smith added, "KPMG helped us scope, design and articulate what it would take to deploy Coupa at AstraZeneca. KPMG professionals brought a wealth of knowledge in regulatory, market insights and in tax."
Meet the person behind the story
Transforming procurement and purchasing processes, whilst also taking advantage of the latest in cloud technology, is something that every organization has grappled with. I’m super proud of what AstraZeneca, Coupa and KPMG have been able to achieve together.
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