Webinar
Webinar recording: Saving is a procurement matter – How SUSS MicroTec achieved targeted cost savings with Tacto
Cost pressure affects even high-tech manufacturers with high capacity utilization. SUSS MicroTec faces the challenge of curbing rising material and process costs and securing margins—all while avoiding the trap of "AI fatigue."
In the webinar "Saving is a Procurement Matter – How SUSS MicroTec Achieved Targeted Cost Savings with Tacto," Marc Heß (Strategic Buyer, SUSS) and Torben Hinrichs (Customer Development, Tacto) demonstrate how data-driven and process-transparent procurement becomes a lever for economies of scale, risk diversification, and genuine savings.
Initial Situation – Cost Reduction Despite Full Order Books
SUSS is operating at full capacity but wants to simultaneously control procurement costs and risks. Three separate procurement organizations were purchasing identical parts at different terms. Before the software solution, supplier and price data were scattered across four different systems. Compliance and ESG obligations increase the documentation burden. Without an integrated view, the company faced the risk of duplicate orders, price outliers, and lost time.
The goal: full transparency regarding volumes, prices, risks, and deadlines—consolidated into a strong, centrally managed procurement function.
How SUSS uses Tacto
- Price and volume analysis: The platform displays price and ordering trends by commodity group, supplier, and item, and automatically flags outliers.
- Savings insights: Tacto Intelligence provides proactive, AI-supported savings recommendations and quantifies the potential. This could involve a more cost-effective alternative supplier, volume bundling, or quantity splitting.
- Preparation for supplier negotiations: Print-ready one-pagers combine index comparisons, cost models, and negotiation guides for every meeting.
- Onboarding & document management: One-click master data, guided workflows, and a live status display replace email ping-pong.
Process costs – turn endless searching into a single click
The combination of a single source of truth, automated deadline monitoring, and guided supplier onboarding saves about one full working day per buyer each month:
"With Tacto, everyone gains a full working day per month – time that now goes into value-adding tasks." – Marc Heß, Strategic Buyer at SUSS MicroTec
From data chaos to cost clarity
- Collect data – Cleanly consolidate purchasing and ERP information.
- Create comparability – Mirror prices at the commodity group, supplier, and item level.
- Identify outliers – Positive and negative lists highlight the most significant movements.
- Gain insights – Understand the causes of price increases at the transaction level.
- Renegotiate – Apply findings and demonstrate results.
Prepare for negotiations more effectively
Once a cost driver is identified, Tacto allows you to generate a supplier dossier in seconds: historical price and volume curves, index comparisons, benchmarks, and concrete counterarguments. The procurement team enters every discussion armed with hard facts rather than gut feeling – and negotiates with precision.
Practical examples – an excerpt from our weekly alerts
Example: Thermal labels
- AI signal: Consolidate volume with an alternative supplier
- Realized impact: €2,640 p.a.
Flow regulator example
- AI signal: Significant price discrepancy with an alternative supplier
- Realized impact: €7,501 p.a.
More than just savings – positive side effects
- Global transparency: Orders from all plants appear in a single view.
- Eliminate process errors: Maverick buying and duplicate orders are identified early.
- Fresh perspectives instead of routine: Regular insights challenge established procurement processes.
- Strategic flexibility: Routine tasks are reduced, and negotiation leverage is actively utilized.
Conclusion
With Tacto, SUSS MicroTec makes savings measurable: a central database, automated workflows, and AI-powered insights help uncover potential before it gets lost in the daily grind. Cost reduction becomes a continuous routine – and procurement evolves from administrative processing to a recognized value driver.
In this webinar, Marc Heß from SUSS MicroTec and Torben Hinrichs from Tacto demonstrate how SUSS MicroTec uses Tacto to consolidate all price, volume, and supplier data on a single platform, establish automated document workflows, and receive AI-driven savings recommendations. As a result, every buyer gains one full workday per month for value-added tasks, negotiations are based on reliable dossiers rather than gut feeling, and initial measures—from bundled thermal labels to more cost-effective flow regulators—deliver tangible cost savings. The result: greater transparency, fewer process errors, and a procurement function that demonstrably becomes a value driver.
