Sysmex Europe GmbH

Torben Draeger, financial key user and business analyst at Sysmex Europe, explained the objective of implementing a new solution, “We wanted to have linkage between the purchase requisition process and SAP as part of our purchase-to-pay processes, providing a real-time check on budget availability for both the person submitting the requisition and the approvers. We also wanted to eliminate the need to key in purchase order information twice, which is prone to error and time-consuming.”

OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions is also able to meet the challenges of Sysmex’s second project, "New Request Process" (NRP).

“We decided to use Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions and its support of SAP Fiori applications, which we can develop, to best meet our needs for mobility, flexibility and user-friendliness,” said Draeger. “By extending our use of OpenText, we also take advantage of existing knowledge within the business and the two solutions use existing hardware, thereby minimizing the cost.”

Using SAP Fiori applications developed by OpenText, the purchase order approval process is delivered in an intuitive user interface requiring very little training, fewer than 30 minutes in most cases, which has led to high user adoption rates.

“When an order is sent for approval, the approver can easily and quickly confirm the availability of budget for the particular cost center,” said Draeger. “It is then a simple process to approve or reject the request, automatically moving the process on to the next step in line with our corporate signature policy and all instantly captured in SAP. Also, a full audit trail is maintained, which is essential for our auditors. This gives us greater control and is helping us reduce our overall costs.”

Adhering to policy and keeping a record of each step is key to Sysmex Europe meeting its obligations under quality control standards, such as ISO. It is important this is enforced, as each business function at Sysmex Europe manages its own general expenditure, with no centralized purchasing function. By deploying the Fiori applications in this way, it will be able to consistently provide scale for all regions in EMEA.

"OpenText Vendor Invoice Management also paves the way for future innovation around the use of mobile devices, which will further increase efficiency, speeding up processes and further reducing costs," said Draeger.

For personnel who do not routinely use SAP, the Fiori applications built on OpenText VIM remove the often daunting and overwhelmingly complex interface of SAP.

“The interface is smooth and clean and is effectively reduced to the bare bones of the steps of raising a requisition, approving or rejecting a request and reporting. Users can access applications via a browser on their laptops and tablets once they are connected and authenticated on the corporate network. In the future, they will be able to use smartphones too,” said Draeger.

Deployment of Vendor Invoice Management began in Austria and is now moving to other regions. Sysmex Europe is planning a wider rollout to more than 10 EMEA organizations.

“We worked closely with OpenText Professional Services throughout the design and implementation of the new applications,” said Draeger. “Their support has been invaluable in helping us achieve our goals of control and flexibility and we’re now extremely well placed to maximize the benefits provided by the solution, including even greater automation of vendor invoice and purchase order matching.”