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Sodexo
The challenge The challenge was to find a solution for the purchasing process in which changes to the product range could be made efficiently, orders could be placed uniformly at 1,350 locations and thousands of invoices could be sent electronically every week. The solution The solution was to implement the TIE Verification Manager, a software tool that is part of the TIE Kinetix Business Integration Platform. The TIE Verification Manager functions as a middleware application that integrates with the existing SAP materials management environment. The web-based front portal provides product range managers and purchasers with an overview, a checking capability and measurement points in the automated exchange of article information between Sodexo and its suppliers. The result Product range management was integrated into the purchasing platform; the catalogue is always up-to-date for all users; process management has been optimised and the administration has been radically simplified at all locations; effective matching of order and invoice has been achieved and invoice loss has been kept to a minimum.

Text Cees Steijger ~ Photography Marcel R. Bakker

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Purchasing using Click & Buy

More Flexibility less , administrative pressure

With more than 355,000 employees representing 132 different nationalities, Sodexo operates from 30,600 locations in 80 countries. The Sodexo Group, of which Sodexo Nederland has been a part since 1995, is the biggest independent Food & Facilities Management organisation in the world.

n the Netherlands, Sodexo operates from 1,350 locations and every day about 6,500 employees provide more than half a million people with food & facilities management services, remote sites services and party catering & events. In the Netherlands, Sodexo serves companies, (government) institutions, polytechnics, universities and the (health)care sector. The trend is towards growth. The socalled, out-of-home market in particular has increased enormously in recent years, mostly as a result of a growing awareness on the part of the public that take-away food can also be healthy. Sodexo adds to this items such as biological products and, in general terms, sustainability (including fair trade). And this combination is bearing fruit: the groups worldwide turnover is approaching 14 billion. In the Netherlands, Sodexo works closely with Deli XL, which supplies Sodexo with everything it needs to serve guests, clients, residents and patients with something tasty. From fresh ingredients to freshly prepared products. Deli XL has a complex distribution network with specialised regional branches the so-called fresh centres. Each of the 1,350 Sodexo locations does its own purchasing using Click & Buy. Click & Buy is based on the centrally facilitated SAP Supply Chain Relation Management module, SAP SRM (Supplier Relationship Management). Deli XL is the main supplier, covering about 80% of Sodexos total purchasing in the Netherlands.

CliCk & Buy The Click & Buy purchasing project focusing on streamlining the uniform purchasing and ordering process - started some time ago at the headquarters of the Sodexo Group in Paris. The aim of the Click & Buy project is to reduce the load on catering locations, optimise the purchasing process and, at the same time, have better management information available, and to have all reports from all over the world within reach in the future. Arno Cok, Supply Chain Catalogue Manager Benelux, is co-responsible for implementing the Click & Buy programme in the Netherlands. We spoke with him at the head office of Sodexo in Capelle aan den IJssel. The Click & Buy programme was first carried out as a pilot project in Belgium and Spain in order to gain experience prior to a large-scale rollout, says Arno Cok. It was the turn of the Netherlands next. According to Arno, there are many advantages in the new approach to purchasing, which is webbased at the locations. The system is based on a SAP

In the Netherlands, we are a considerable step further than the rest of the world
Arno Cok

material management system that incorporates all the products of all of the suppliers of Sodexo Nederland. The advantage of being web-based is that its flexible and accessible. Once the location manager has logged in, he gets full access to his catalogue. Assignments and authorisations ensure that the location manager sees only what is intended for him and can then place his orders. After delivery, the goods are processed while, following automatic checking and matching with the purchasing order by the TIE Business Integration Software, the electronic invoices are immediately processed in a SAP system at our head office in Capelle aan den IJssel. So no paper invoices are sent to the locations. This makes management information much better and reduces administrative pressure on the location manager.

Daily Changes However, Arno admits that the approach has a disadvantage. He is referring to the daily changes involved in the various products, of which there are about 8,000 to 10,000 in the catalogue. These changes are of many sorts, such as new packaging, prices and weights, new brands, etc. With the Click & Buy approach, we should use a so-called Request for Quotations, in which you send the database to the supplier in Excel format requesting him to feed back any changes so that we can update our system. However, with an approach like that, you are totally dependent on the supplier being prepared to check all records. There are all kind of risks, of which corrupting the file is not the least serious one. We saw a lot more advantages in
TIE ~ 1/2009 ~ P5

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an automated approach that could save us a lot of work and would also provide the maximum data reliability. Moreover, we were convinced that Click & Buy would only be interesting if it also enabled electronic messaging. We regarded it as extra profit if orders could be sent to the supplier automatically and the invoice could be processed electronically. For this reason, we started looking around and invited parties to come up with a solution.

VerifiCation Manager This is how Sodexo came to TIE Kinetix. The two companies were not unknown to each other. For example, the TIE Business Integration Platform had been implemented at Sodexo to answer the huge Sodexo organisations messaging needs. TIE offered the TIE Verification Manager that had been successfully deployed at Intratuin, for example, says Arno. We studied this case thoroughly and quickly became convinced that with a little customisation this tool would be the ideal solution for Sodexo. The TIE Verification Manager was implemented in 2007. But how does it work in Sodexos daily practice? In fact we work with two files, says Arno. One file is our catalogue containing about 10,000 info-records and the other is the suppliers file. The catalogue provided by the supplier is sent in his own format. The TIE platform takes this format and ensures that the Verification Manager can work with it and that the two sources can be matched in the Verification Manager. In fact the Verification Manager can handle various product descriptions. The suppliers description is compared with the description in the Sodexo catalogue. If differences are identified by the Verification Manager (e.g. a different unit price or a different weight) Supply Chain Management receives a notification. Once

We saw a lot more advantages in an automated approach that could save us a lot of work

it is approved, the specific datum is allowed and sent to our own database. This approach saves us a considerable amount of time because it is largely automated. Moreover, the chance of errors is slight, which means that the data in the catalogue are always clean.

saVings Apart from the fact that the data in the catalogue are now always up to date, the introduction of the TIE Verification Manager also brings considerable savings, especially in terms of time. For example, the accuracy of the catalogue data means that invoice loss has been drastically reduced. In the case of an average of 30,000 invoices per month, and based on 20 minutes spent dealing with every lost invoice, every percent improvement makes a difference of no less than 100 hours per month. An additional advantage is that incoming invoices are automatically made available to SAP by the TIE software. So none of these invoices have to be entered manually. This also saves several minutes work per invoice in fact no less than 1,500 hours per month based on a minimum of 3 minutes handling time for a paper invoice. So this results in sizeable savings annually. In the Netherlands, we are a considerable step further than the rest of Sodexo in the

world on this point, says Arno. Sodexo has now decided to bring the Benelux countries under a single management with the aim of combining strengths. Supply Chain Management was one of the first departments to be affected in this way. Which resulted in centralizing Catalogue Management in the Netherlands. The TIE Business Integration Platform will now be rolled out in Belgium too. In Belgium, weve found that the situation is different to that of the Netherlands, says Arno. They dont work with one big supplier as is the case in the Netherlands but with a Top 25. This resulted in a lot of differences which meant that the catalogue no longer satisfied the improved Dutch standards. They were still using Requests for Quotation and that has now been replaced with our EDI approach. interest Arno Cok sits on the Sodexo Click & Buy User Committee and recently presented his experiences with the TIE Verification Manager in the Netherlands to a meeting of his fellow Supply Chain Catalogue managers. There is increasing interest in the Dutch approach from other countries. Especially as Supply Chain Management in the Netherlands is also functionally responsible for the purchasing process in Sweden, Finland and Germany, it is expected that the TIE Verification Manager will also be introduced in these countries. After all, its a good solution and it makes things easier, says Arno Cok.

In the Sodexo company restaurants you will always be certain to make a wholesome, healthy choice.