Belimed: Automating Manual and Operational Procurement Tasks

Belimed Life Science AG

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🏗  Industry:                          Mechanical Engineering (Medical Device Manufacturing)

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🗺  Headquarters:         Sulgen (Switzerland)

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🧍  Employees:                      ~ 280

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👥  Procurement Staff:   10

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💵  Revenue                                   approx. $40M per year

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🧰  Procurement Volume:            approx. $25M per year

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Belimed Life Science AG, a subsidiary of the Metall Zug Group, was spun off from Belimed AG in April 2019 with the goal of focusing specifically on customer needs in the pharmaceutical industry. As an internationally operating company with 50 years of experience in plant engineering for sterilizers and washing systems for the pharmaceutical and food industries, Belimed Life Science is among the innovation leaders and pioneers in the industry.

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"After the spin-off, we had a lot of poor master data. Tacto helps enormously through automated supplier inquiries to enrich our master data in the system without significant effort and to ensure data quality." - Zvjezdan Garic, Head of Supply Chain

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Initial Situation and Challenges:

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Through the spin-off, Belimed Life Science was able to take advantage of the benefits of an SME: shorter paths, faster processes, more efficient project management. At the same time, however, the spin-off was also the starting signal for building a new procurement organization and the challenge of building procurement from the ground up. Since Belimed Life Science is still a very young company with limited (IT) resources, the main task was to set up core procurement processes as quickly as possible and without significant resource expenditure, as well as to create transparency over procurement activities.

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Additionally, Belimed Life Science AG experienced enormous growth through COVID, which quickly changed requirements for processes, data transparency, and strategic steering capabilities: processes were outdated and not standardized, and procurement activities were disorganized and incomplete.

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For example, there was incomplete and outdated master and procurement data from the time in the corporate group and from the SAP system. To determine certain KPIs, Zvjezdan regularly had to export SAP data, merge different datasets, and laboriously prepare them in Excel. Typically, one day per week was spent on data evaluations and analyses.

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Furthermore, supplier management, onboarding, and the management of supplier information were still very operational and Excel-driven. For example, the supplier self-assessment process was very time-consuming and characterized by many system breaks: suppliers could fill out the supplier self-assessment via PDF on the website, which then had to be transferred to Excel by the procurement team in order to enter it into the SAP system. Additionally, there was no overview of supplier certificates; they were frequently expired, and the inquiry process with suppliers was characterized by email ping-pong. The qualification and evaluation of nearly 500 suppliers took place in Excel and was virtually impossible for the small and young procurement organization to manage. The Excel-based evaluation of the underlying criteria, such as delivery performance and price performance, took about 1 day per month.

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System-side support for the specific needs of a fast-growing SME was indispensable. However, no tool could really help: too complex, too resource-intensive implementation projects, or simply didn't create added value.

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3 Challenges at Belimed Life Science

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Build strategic core procurement processes from the ground up (data transparency and process automation)

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Improve master data quality from the SAP system

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Quickly & easily introduce system-side support in procurement without significant resource expenditure

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‍Solution

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Then came the breakthrough with Tacto: The digitalization of core processes and data transparency could be realized within just a few weeks after a quick and simple implementation – entirely without IT resources.

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With Tacto, it was possible, for example, to overview procurement activities at the push of a button and see all figures, data, and facts about suppliers, items, and commodity groups at a glance, as well as transparently track price developments and delivery times. This made preparation for supplier meetings and the identification of price outliers or unused tiered pricing possible without significant effort.

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Additionally, Belimed Life Science can map the entire supplier management process from onboarding to administration to qualification in Tacto. For example, new suppliers can be qualified at the push of a button by inviting them directly through Tacto. This way, complete onboarding workflows with supplier self-assessments and certificates can be handled in a structured manner – including automated reminder functions.

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"We onboard 4-5 new suppliers per month. With Tacto, we save 30-60 minutes per supplier."

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Through automated supplier inquiries, suppliers are given the opportunity to independently maintain important information, certificates, and master data, which allows Belimed Life Science to significantly improve master data quality.

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"Following the Pareto principle, Tacto helps us enormously to update suppliers and their data."

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The improvements brought about by unifying the process and data landscape in supplier management form the foundation for Belimed Life Science to strategically develop their suppliers further. For example, supplier reduction among 500 suppliers is a major topic. With Tacto, there is now a transparent and complete basis for taking targeted measures based on revenue development, number of suppliers in commodity groups, delivery times, and many other factors.

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"With Tacto, I can determine with just a few clicks which suppliers are relevant and answer questions like whether I need 10 suppliers in a commodity group or whether 2 would suffice."

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3 Successes with Tacto:

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70% time savings through the automation of operational and Excel-based core processes as well as data and spend transparency at the push of a button

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80% time savings through structured and digitalized supplier management, from onboarding to certificate management to qualification and evaluation

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Transparent and reliable foundation for taking targeted measures for the strategic and sustainable development of the supplier portfolio

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What Characterizes the Collaboration?

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Particularly convincing, in addition to the easy and fast onboarding of employees – even cross-departmentally (controlling) – is the intuitive and simple operation of the software.

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"Where other tools require training, everything in Tacto is self-explanatory."

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Additionally, Belimed Life Science values the individual support as well as the close and partnership-driven collaboration with flexible ability to co-shape the product.

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"You are a super friendly team – it's simply fun to work with you!"

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THANK YOU

Many thanks to Zvedi and Belimed Life Science for our collaborative and trusted partnership. Through customers and partners like you, it is possible to continuously develop our product in close exchange and close to daily operations, with the goal of making procurement organizations future-proof. We look forward to the continued journey together.

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Learn how Belimed Life Science was able to achieve up to 70% time savings through the automation of manual and operational procurement tasks using Tacto.