Enabling an Optimized Touchless Ordering Process for Oil & Gas B2B Client

Brief: The client engaged SkillNet for its SAP Commerce Cloud (SAP CC) and commerce expertise to optimize their cumbersome ordering process, and ensure a seamless and positive customer experience, through the implementation of touchless order capture and order fulfilment.

About the Client

The client is a Canadian petrochemical company founded in 1954 that primarily produces ethylene, polyethylene, and chemical co-products used in a wide variety of applications, including food and electronics packaging, industrial materials, appliances, and various consumer goods. With over 2,500 employees worldwide and $4.5B (USD) in annual sales, the company is committed to reshaping plastics for a better, more sustainable world.

Challenges

The ordering process for customers was cumbersome and highly inefficient, requiring multiple manual interventions and touchpoints. Customer purchase orders needed to be manually entered into the ERP for conversion into sales orders, leading to: 

• A poor customer experience 
• Low portal adoption 
• Lengthy sales order cycle 
• High order processing costs 

As a recently-commissioned new plant would double manufacturing capacity, with 30% of the client’s total order volume (consignment orders) unable to be directly entered into their eCommerce platform, they needed a way to optimize their online ordering system in order to sufficiently scale to meet the anticipated increase in demand.

Solution

SkillNet first performed an audit of the client’s eCommerce platform (SAP CC) and ERP (S/4HANA) to identify which processes could be automated, including: 

SAP Commerce

• Eliminate Sales Detail Screen 
• Exception Reporting 
• Consignment Fill and Tap Orders 
• Regulatory Statements and Resource Library Implementation

S/4HANA

• Sourcing Plant/Ship Point (for new orders) 
• Transportation Routes and Rates 
• Pricing Approval 
• Credit Check 
• In/Out of Plan Verification 
• Advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) 
• Customer PDF or Spreadsheet Order Upload

A Touchless Order System was implemented to automate numerous manual processes and enable newly-entered customer orders to flow into the backend ERP systems for fulfillment with minimal intervention. 

SAP Commerce upgrades (2005 > 2011 > 2015 > 2205) and integrations were implemented to align the architecture with the client’s strategic initiatives. 

Production support services were provided post-completion to ensure seamless, trouble-free operations.

Benefits

The optimizations employed by SkillNet resulted in a fully-optimized sales order cycle that: 

• Eliminated cumbersome manual interventions.  
• Reduced order processing times.  
• Decreased costs. 
• Delivered a seamless customer experience that increased portal usage. 
• Provided portal access to the Resource Library and Regulatory Statements. 
• Enabled advanced Available-to-Promise (aATP) for more efficient and productive usage of S/4HANA. 
• Provided monitoring of failed/errored customer orders. 
• Reduced friction between the company’s channels, sales, and customer service.

Obtenga más información sobre nuestras SAP Commerce Cloud expertise.

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