Direct Value Through Procurement Digitization

Schwäbische Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH

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🏗 Industry: Machine Building

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🗺 Headquarters: Waldmössingen (Germany)

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🧍 Employees: 1,200

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🧰 Procurement Volume: low three-digit million range / year

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Schwäbische Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH, or SW for short, is an internationally operating manufacturer of production systems for metalworking. The company specializes in machining centers, automation and system solutions in the automotive industry, but has also proven itself in the agricultural and construction machinery sector, as well as in hydraulics and pneumatics.

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"In procurement, we were able to achieve some initial success with point solutions, but Tacto was the jackpot. Previously, there was nothing that could be implemented with reasonable effort."

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Matthias Schlotter

Head of Procurement

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The Challenge:

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Before SW worked with Tacto, IT projects often involved high implementation effort, high costs, and error-proneness.

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Due to SW's strong growth in recent years, the overhaul and optimization of processes had become indispensable. At the same time, employee resources in both IT and procurement are limited. To ensure future-readiness and continued growth, the digitization of procurement was essential.

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For example, without a procurement operating system, it seemed nearly impossible to analyze all relevant data. There was no transparency regarding the development of all suppliers, product categories, and items. Without such an overview, price increases and outliers often went unnoticed and savings potential remained hidden.

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To automate highly manual, Excel-based processes such as price analyses or report generation, Tacto developed an intuitive procurement cockpit together with SW's buyers – with all the required KPIs and visualizations.

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On the path to digitization, SW had previously only achieved success in isolated areas of procurement when searching for a procurement operating system. No software could be found whose price or effort was proportionate to its value.

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Only point solutions for procurement that didn't work holistically and led to system breaks in workflows

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Time-consuming, manual & Excel-based processes and data analyses that tied up employee capacity and created no added value

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Growing complexity & lack of transparency in procurement that concealed negative trends

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Tacto as the Solution

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With Tacto, SW is significantly advancing the digitization of procurement:

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The ease of use and value of the software quickly became apparent to all employees. Shortly after the introduction of Tacto, all buyers proactively requested access to the features, as they significantly simplified their daily work. With Tacto, SW's procurement is moving away from Excel-based processes toward a fully digitized procurement with automated processes.

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In meetings with management and suppliers, impressive real-time analyses can be accessed. This enables savings potentials to be identified and actions to be initiated. Even supplier action items were managed and tracked through the new software. Just months after implementing Tacto's software, SW was already recording significant savings.

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For example, SW was able to analyze price developments from individual suppliers and deflect price increases in the five-figure range. The intelligent notification for significant price deviations (outliers) was an extraordinarily helpful feature, preventively warning the company against overpayment.

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What makes Tacto a preferred partner for SW is that Tacto was able to perfectly address the most pressing procurement needs at SW. No other software on the market can offer procurement so much support while being implemented with such minimal effort.

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Fully digitized procurement tailored to SW's requirements

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Intuitive software for all employees that automates manual processes

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Savings through Tacto alerts and transparent data analysis for supplier meetings

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What SW Values Most About Tacto

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The collaboration is excellent – above all, very fast and professional. On top of that, it was simply fun. Achieving results so quickly is something you normally don't experience with software projects. When our employees saw the first spend analytics, one of them said, "wow, we're incredibly digital now."

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If you'd also like to learn how Tacto can support you with your digital procurement needs, please don't hesitate to contact us. (see below)

With Tacto, SW was able to significantly advance procurement digitization and achieve six-figure savings within just a few weeks.