Vorwerk & Co.: Delivering Improved Quality of Life Wherever Home Is

Executive Overview

Vorwerk & Co. KG is a 135-year-old, family-owned company, whose core business encompasses both the production and direct sale of a wide range of high-quality household products and cosmetics in over 70 countries. The Vorwerk group also offers leasing and financing services as well as services in industrial facility management.

With 12,319 employees, over 611,000 global sales advisors, and production facilities in Germany, France, Mexico, and China, its markets span from the UK and Switzerland to Mexico and Australia. The company wanted to upgrade its existing procurement solution to a more efficient, integrated procurement suite that could be rolled out from Germany and Switzerland to other countries and regions.

Before: Challenges and Opportunities

• System complexity, high customization, and lack of end-to-end process coverage in some areas

• Need to find a comprehensive procurement suite to increase automation, process efficiencies, and supplier performance visibility and value while mitigating supplier risk and and realizing savings

• Desire to speed up innovation by building on its existing investment in SAP Cloud Application Services offerings for all business processes, and to allow a smooth ERP integration with a new, modern, and mobile user experience for sourcing, purchasing, and supplier collaboration

Why SAP

• SAP Ariba solutions to deliver business value and improved total cost of ownership through a single, integrated procurement platform for direct and indirect spend across the source-to-pay function

• Supplier enablement service, specifically the enablement team, for helpful advice and documentation in refocusing the business’ supplier strategy and requirements, enabling suppliers’ technical capabilities, prioritizing tasks in line with local rollout plans, and tracking progress at each enablement stage

After: Value-Driven Results

• Centralized solution with a strong basis for growth of capabilities, synergies, and functionalities globally

• 1,000 suppliers initially onboarded, allowing for an effective pilot and driving order accuracy

• Improved supplier competition through e-sourcing, monitoring, and risk alerting

• Flexibility for administering and customizing ad hoc approval processes

• Faster and simplified processes, greater process visibility, and 100% spend transparency