Getronics

Overview

How Getronics combined Mendix with SAP and reduced the lead time of its procurement process from weeks to days

Getronics is a global ICT integration specialist with more than 3,900 employees in 23 countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Getronics' transformation portfolio offers strong capabilities and expertise, including market-leading digital workplaces, business applications, cloud services, security and smart IoT solutions for the space, enabling businesses to grow.

The Challenge

In order to optimally support customers, Getronics purchases services and products from third parties. The purchasing process of these resources consists of several steps, such as a purchase request, approvals, any changes or cancellations and the order receipt. In the old situation, it often took weeks before a purchase request was converted to a purchase order. This was partly because requests had to be entered manually in SAP, which made the process labour-intensive and error-prone. On the other hand, the process was delayed because many people are involved in the purchasing process.

The solution

Aiden eventually developed applications for Getronics that support the process from purchase request to purchase order. This application was developed with the low-code platform Mendix and integrates perfectly with SAP. The application was brought live in six weeks with 2.5 fte. The application has a rich library of functions such as the possibility to duplicate purchase requisitions and existing rules, a function to upload Excel documents and the possibility to automatically send reminder emails to speed up the approval process.

The result

The application has considerably accelerated the entry of purchase orders. The lead time of purchase orders has been reduced from weeks to a few days. In addition, the user-friendliness has been significantly improved and the error sensitivity in the process has been reduced.

Our experience

Aiden: “At Aiden, we bring a company's core systems together with innovative solutions – and that can be quite a challenge at times. Existing systems often require a completely different development approach than the newer innovative solutions. Where you want to have thought out core systems as much as possible in advance to limit risks, you want to start as soon as possible with innovative applications to present a result. As a consultant, you have to bring that together, and that makes the work interesting and instructive.”

The project team was spread across Great Britain, Malaysia and the Netherlands. This was one of the biggest challenges during this project for all involved. “Because everyone speaks a different language and comes from a different culture, it is important to pay extra attention to communication. By regularly calling together and expressing assumptions, you avoid a lot of misunderstandings. In addition, Mendix is made for these kinds of projects. By regularly, at least weekly, putting a new version live and having it validated by the business, you avoid a lot of rework. Ultimately, it was also the collaboration that made this project a success.”

About Aiden