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Diebold Nixdorf evolves decentralised procurement
How using Amazon Business helped drive financial savings and increased productivity in their tail spend processes.
Published on
11 March, 2021
About Diebold Nixdorf
For more than 160 years, Diebold Nixdorf has consistently relied on innovative solutions and service focused on its customers. Since its foundation in 1859, the technology company has been characterized by speed, agility and innovation. Today, Diebold Nixdorf is a world leader in technology solutions for banks and retailers. To this end, the company automates, digitizes, and transforms the way people bank and shop. Manufacturing and parts of global purchasing are located in the company’s hub in Paderborn, Germany.
Decentralised sourcing processes
Since 2018, Diebold Nixdorf has been executing its DN Now transformation to improve operations and implement more digital and cloud-based tools throughout the company. Historically, as part of Diebold Nixdorf’s procurement process, goods could only be ordered from listed suppliers in the company via SAP. For this purpose, SRM catalogue management is available for the company’s various departments and buyers. All employees with appropriate SAP access can use the SRM system, which enables decentralized sourcing. Supervisor approval chains ensure necessary control. Once the approval process has been successfully completed, the purchase order generates a PO number for the further process. This was the situation before Amazon Business was integrated into Diebold Nixdorf's purchasing system in September 2020.
"Our decentralised purchasing process has made it somewhat difficult for colleagues to find the right supplier for their respective needs. Amazon Business provides us a huge benefit given the depth of its capability."
— Rolf Rehmann, Global Category Manager, IT & Communication Services, Global Procurement
Finding the right supplier in a decentralised purchasing process
"Our decentralised purchasing process has made it somewhat difficult for colleagues to find the right supplier for their respective needs," says Rolf Rehmann, Global Category Manager, IT & Communication Services in Diebold Nixdorf’s Global Procurement organization. "Of course, Amazon Business provides us a huge benefit given the depth of its capability." Rehmann sees another plus in the simple, intuitive shopping environment similar to popular e-commerce websites with which users are familiar . Purchasing conditions and prices can be compared more effectively at Amazon Business, which presents favorable, competitive market comparisons. Through the creation of a product basket, Diebold Nixdorf was able to predefine suitable and inexpensive products for its office needs, increasing potential savings and productivity. "We benefit from both financial and time savings through Amazon Business," says Rehmann.
The COVID pandemic highlighted another advantage: During a time in which suppliers already created in the system had delivery difficulties for various sanitation products (e.g., disinfection dispensers), demand could be effectively met via Amazon Business in compliance with Diebold Nixdorf purchasing standards.
"We benefit from both financial and time savings through Amazon Business."
— Rolf Rehmann, Global Category Manager, IT & Communication Services, Global Procurement organization.
Savings transparency through Spend Visibility
Amazon Business was activated after two to three test orders for select Diebold Nixdorf operations in Germany, with just over 300 SRM users. "From Amazon Business, we only purchase the products where Amazon is the biller. The others are greyed out for us. This means that we deliberately chose Amazon Business for one-time orders in order to manage our tail-spend," explains Milind Tailor, Head of Indirect Procurement Eurasia. The company promises more transparency through the evaluations and filtering capabilities provided in Amazon Business, which the self-configured SAP system does not allow. Above all, Rolf Rehmann wants to know: "Where are our savings and how did we reach those savings?" These exact requirements can be addressed very well with the Spend Visibility function and the correspondingly processed data, because very granular evaluations can be displayed in this tool.
Amazon Business is truly a self-service tool, giving buyers the ability to purchase what they need in a simple, fast, and convenient way within procurement control and visibility. It reduces procurement operations’ workload while at the same time improving the user satisfaction. Amazon’s international presence and global capabilities simplifies global implementation, which the company plans to execute in all business units throughout Germany and, subsequently, its entire EMEA region. The long-term strategy then provides for global access. After his first experience with Amazon Business, Tailor received positive feedback from his colleagues. "The expectation with some colleagues is that the time is right for this to happen, for us to evolve. Throughout the process, I would say that the Amazon Business platform has been well received," he said.
