Efficient Procurement Centralization Across Three Locations

WEGU Holding GmbH

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🏗   Industry:                         Automotive

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🗺  Headquarters:         Kassel, Germany

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🧍  Employees:                      > 350

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💶  Revenue                                 ~ $105M per year

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💶  Procurement Volume              ~ $77M per year

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WEGU Holding GmbH, an established mid-market company with nearly 75 years of history, specializes in plastic and rubber parts. Across three production facilities — in Kassel (Germany), Slovakia, and China — WEGU produces technical rubber-metal components and plastic injection-molded parts for the automotive industry. As part of a transformation process, WEGU is focusing on new powertrain technologies such as electric and hybrid drives. With a clear vision for sustainable and resource-efficient production, WEGU is moving into the future with a commitment to continuous improvement and growth, positioning itself as an innovation leader in the industry.

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"Our goal is to return to a centralized procurement organization while simultaneously establishing a unified category management system. This comprehensive initiative can only be realized through Tacto. For us, Tacto is essential to successfully executing our transformation toward centralized procurement." - Sascha Priester, Vice President Purchasing, WEGU

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Initial Situation

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WEGU was originally organized in a decentralized manner, reflected in a clear organizational and disciplinary separation of its procurement departments. This structure extended to the decentralized handling of various procurement and compliance topics, including TISAX (data and information security).

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WEGU's supply chains are characterized by diverse requirements, particularly regarding the different materials: rubber, metal, and plastic. Rising sustainability demands and customer needs add further complexity. Special attention is paid to the requirements of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), which necessitate production in Europe for the European market.

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This starting point led to various procurement challenges at WEGU.

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The Challenge

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The decentralized organization created a major problem of duplicate work at WEGU. Sister companies within the holding were performing identical tasks manually at the same time, leading to significant data chaos and severe inefficiency.

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Additionally, numerous Excel reports had been created and used as the basis for supplier management. SAP as WEGU's ERP system was unable to replace the need for decentralized analyses and management across various digital locations via Excel. Manual processing of Excel spreadsheets led to erroneous analyses due to the lack of automation. Searching for previously gathered and analyzed data took more time than running the analysis from scratch.

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A considerable volume of individual emails was used for all types of requests (NDAs, supplier qualification agreements, etc.), as there were no tools to coordinate these centrally. For example, new confidentiality agreements had to be individually sent to 50 suppliers, including reminders for non-responses via 50 separate emails. Processing TISAX data in Excel was particularly error-prone. Data was entered incorrectly, and for classified suppliers, new NDAs had to be concluded via separate emails, leading to difficulties in correctly mapping the information.

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3 Needs WEGU Wanted to Address

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Establish a unified category management system

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Centralize the procurement process landscape

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Build a strategic procurement organization across all locations

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‍Tacto as THE Solution

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Sascha Priester had been searching for years for a suitable system tailored to mid-market requirements that could automate supplier management. After a long search, he discovered Tacto and was 100% convinced.

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"Our goal is to return to a centralized procurement organization while simultaneously establishing a unified category management system. We aim to source suppliers centrally and manage TISAX processes in an automated, centralized manner. This comprehensive initiative can only be realized through Tacto. For us, Tacto is essential to successfully executing our transformation toward centralized procurement." - Sascha Priester

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Tacto supports WEGU both in solving existing challenges and in being a long-term partner for future ones.

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"Tacto is the central tool for addressing both current and future challenges. Since we previously operated very manually, Tacto enables us to reach an entirely new level of automation. It is clear that Tacto is an essential tool, especially in light of upcoming challenges such as import bans or geopolitical conflicts. With Tacto, we have entirely new capabilities to respond." - David Tangri, Buyer

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Tacto significantly simplifies WEGU's daily operations. With just one click, all relevant figures, data, and facts for all suppliers can be displayed. Additionally, all requests — whether NDAs for TISAX or supplier qualification agreements — can be automated and clearly presented in individual supplier views.

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"Tacto's individual supplier views allow us to respond precisely to internal requirements. It functions like an intelligent modular system that gives us the flexibility in procurement to adapt to changes in internal requirements." - David Tangri, Buyer

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Additionally, Tacto's supplier filtering function opens up new ways of working — for example, by running automated queries for quality assurance agreements or supplier qualification agreements with strategic suppliers. At a glance, existing agreements can be identified, and it becomes clear which suppliers should be partnered with in the future because they could be strategically important for WEGU. This leads to an entirely new way of working that didn't exist before.

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3 Wins with Tacto:

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Centralization of essential procurement processes across all locations (TISAX, NDAs, supplier qualification agreements, etc.)

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Massive time savings in operational procurement

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Rapid response and adaptability to upcoming procurement challenges, resulting in better planning capabilities

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Outlook with Tacto

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The overarching future goal with Tacto is the centralization of procurement units across all three locations. The challenge lies in building a centralized organization alongside ongoing day-to-day operations. A decisive component is the standardization of processes. WEGU aims to identify and develop synergies from various processes, ensuring everyone in procurement follows the same workflows. Questions such as supplier onboarding, sending RFQs, and managing daily operations should all be handled uniformly. Tacto plays a central role in this entire strategic approach. The goal is for WEGU to handle all relevant processes centrally through Tacto.

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"We view Tacto as our future partner and are working toward a collaborative development on equal footing. The need for Tacto lies both in our organizational transformation and in the challenges ahead. With more than 60% of our spending going through suppliers, our primary focus is where we can most significantly impact business success: in procurement. Tacto is our companion for the future." - Sascha Priester, Vice President Purchasing

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Many thanks to Sascha Priester, David Tangri, and the entire WEGU team for our trusted partnership and collaboration.

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Through partners and customers like you, it is possible to continuously develop our product in close exchange and close to the day-to-day realities of procurement, as well as to discuss the topics that matter most to industrial mid-market procurement teams in joint webinars.

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Learn how WEGU leveraged Tacto to achieve efficient procurement centralization across three locations.