Heidelberg Materials: Improving procurement transparency with a single, enterprise-wide solution
Explore Heidelberg Materials’ journey with SAP
Building material manufacturer Heidelberg Materials AG knew that visibility across its supplier base was key to enabling the smart decision-making that would help it improve financial performance while meeting sustainability goals. To achieve this, the company harmonized procurement processes across its operations with SAP Ariba solutions.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Building materials | Heidelberg, Germany | 51,000 employees | apsolut GmbH |
spend managed annually.
suppliers doing business with Heidelberg Materials.
remote deployment of SAP Ariba solutions
Head of Procurement Performance Management, Heidelberg Materials AG
Increasing visibility into global procurement operations
Founded in 1873, Heidelberg Materials has grown to become one of the world’s largest producers of cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete, and asphalt. With operations across five continents, the company’s building materials are used for the construction of houses, infrastructure, and commercial and industrial facilities.
Procurement teams at Heidelberg Materials have clear objectives: to create value by running efficient purchasing processes while supporting the company’s mission to reduce carbon emissions and operate according to strict ethical standards. However, a complex IT landscape of multiple, disparate procurement solutions across different geographical regions made it difficult to get the visibility needed to collaborate across teams or make informed decisions.
To address this, Heidelberg Materials decided to establish a unified procurement foundation across the enterprise. This would enable it to standardize and integrate sourcing, supplier management, contract management, and e-procurement processes across the group, providing greater transparency across its supplier base and procurement operations.
Executing an on-time and on-budget remote deployment
Following an extensive tendering process, Heidelberg Materials chose SAP Ariba solutions for its new procurement foundation. A key factor in the decision was the expected ease of integration between the different SAP Ariba solutions, as well as with multiple ERP solutions used for ordering, invoice management, and payment.
With help from SAP partner apsolut GmbH, Heidelberg Materials first implemented the SAP Ariba Contracts solution. Taking a phased approach, the implementation team then deployed the SAP Ariba Buying, SAP Ariba Sourcing, SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance, and SAP Ariba Supplier Risk solutions.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team had to carry out all implementation work remotely. However, thanks to best-practice guidance and experience-based support from apsolut, the deployments went smoothly and were completed on time and on budget. In fact, one unforeseen advantage of the remote deployment was that Heidelberg Materials created video-based training materials instead of arranging in-person training sessions. These reusable training resources enabled procurement staff in more than 30 country clusters to quickly get up to speed with the solutions.
Supporting more-effective and compliant supplier management
With the SAP Ariba solutions in place, Heidelberg Materials has been able to harmonize supplier information across its sourcing, contract management, and catalog management processes. This means that the company can track procurement activities across different systems and different regions to build up a comprehensive picture of the relationship history for each supplier.
Access to these in-depth supplier insights enables procurement staff to collaborate with colleagues in different countries on negotiating deals. It also helps them better understand supplier activities and prioritize time spent on managing business-critical relationships.
Automation of procurement processes has also been a key win for Heidelberg Materials. Employees are now more productive, as they are freed from spending time on routine, low-value tasks and are able to focus on more-strategic tasks such as evaluating new vendors.
Enabling a future of responsible procurement
Thanks to SAP Ariba solutions, procurement employees at Heidelberg Materials are now in a position to make informed and responsible sourcing and procurement decisions. This is helping the company meet ambitious goals for sustainable and ethical business.
Using SAP Ariba Supplier Risk, it can evaluate supplier risk from a sustainability or social responsibility perspective and take steps to mitigate that risk by engaging with specific suppliers or looking for alternatives. In addition, making acceptance of the supplier code of conduct part of the onboarding process helps ensure that new suppliers are working in accordance with key compliance requirements.
Meanwhile, Heidelberg Materials is currently looking into using the guided sourcing capability for SAP Ariba Sourcing. This is expected to provide an improved user experience and help make the sourcing process more agile.
Featured partner
apsolut GmbH is a leading consultancy for intelligent spend management, business networks, procurement, supply chain management, and external workforce management. Its expertise ranges from technical implementation and process consulting to IT project management and the implementation of holistic transformation projects.