Name: Unlocking Resilience, Profitability, and Growth in Manufacturing
Uploaded: 2025-07-09T14:03:28.987Z
Duration: 58 min 12 s
Description: Unlocking Resilience, Profitability, and Growth in Manufacturing

Transcript for "Unlocking Resilience, Profitability, and Growth in Manufacturing": Alright. And just take a quick reminder, we're gonna wait, one more minute for everybody to join, and then we'll dive. Okay. Then welcome, everyone. Welcome to Durr procurement transformation story today of how Durr was able and elevated a perception of procurement to inspire change within their teams and utilize technology, data, and analytics to achieve success. Let me introduce to you the presenters today. I'm starting with our esteemed guest. That's Vinnie Schwan, the CTO of Durr Group, Stefan Lochna from KPMG, part of the performance and strategy department. And hosting today, my self is Alexander Birma. I'm the manager for the solution advisory team at Coupa. And I'd like to quickly hand over, Rene, a few words to introduce yourself and then following Stephan. So alright. Thank you everybody for joining the, live live broadcast today. So I have to admit I'm a little bit nervous, because I've never done such a thing before. A few brief words to myself. 49 married, three daughters, used to pain and suffering. So I ended up working for stock listed companies. No. Honestly speaking. Just kidding. I really love what I'm doing here. I joined Durr, the Durr crew almost six years ago. I started within Homark, which is one of the divisions. I have a very, very long, industry history coming from KUKA, ABB Robotics, and spent ten years in Siemens. And now I have the pleasure to be the chief procurement officer of the Durr Group, and, you will learn a bit more of our journey, later to our live broadcast. And, with that, I would like to hand over to Stefan, who's been our implementation partner on that kind of project, which is, really, really a good collaboration here. Thank thank you very much, Vinay. I appreciate it. And, yeah, thanks everyone for for joining us here. Looking forward to to the session. So Stefan Lechner, working as a partner for KPMG, our performance and strategy team. Focus for myself and the team is is procurement transformations. And, obviously, yeah, Coupa is one of the tools that, we see with many companies, resonate well and being part of their procurement transformations. And, based out of Frankfurt, joined KPMG in in 02/2012. So so quite some time in consulting already as well. Coming back to what Rene said jokingly about suffering. So looking forward to our session today. And with that, yeah, handing over back, Alex, to you. Well, thanks the two of you. Also very good to to be a bit, on the fun side here to keep the nervousness, in check. It's always a good reminder. Procurement can be fun as well. So, hopefully, we can give some some insights on that today. Alright. Just a quick one on the agenda. So we have it fully packed. And just a a little introduction from the Coupa side, also how KPMG is helping out and delivering, what Coupa brings on the capability side, and, basically, then following on the Durr Group side of how they implemented all of their ambitions and also having some stories between the lines. Speaking of between the lines, some housekeeping as well. We have a panel where we do a little internal discussion because I'm also curious of of how things went. So I have a few questions prepared for the for the team around here, and then also we want to give you a chance to raise your questions. So please feel free to do so. The broadcasting system here allows you to provide questions, and, hopefully, we can cover most of them in the end. If not, we also can try to follow-up on things. So please feel free to chime in, raise your questions, and I will try to get them all covered in the end. As mentioned, a little bit introduction from who is you. So I'm gonna, together, Stefan, present a little bit the Coupa and the KPMG side on things. So who is Coupa? For those who have never heard of us or don't know what we're exactly doing, we are a global company. We have more than 3,000 customers, similar to our employees as well. Yeah, we have cover more than 8,000,000,000,000 in spend running through the platform. We have a or we provide a network of more than 10,000,000 suppliers, making it much easier to, basically, have to also apply enablement covered because we are not running supplier transaction fees. So it's a very low barrier for making use of the network. Right? So that's the main objective. Coupa is above nine 19 years old now, so we are not the youngest anymore. And, also, we're in size, more than 1,000,000,000 in revenue. So we are a reliable big company, and not going away. The only thing we focus on is what, basically, you will see today. It's procurement, as our main focus and everything surrounding it. So this is dear to our heart. This is where we are investing. And speaking of investing, you can assure that, we keep investing and innovating in this one core product we have in our core platform, making sure that overall, we are able to scale, that our customers are able to scale, and that they are able to also reap all the benefits of the innovation right into their Coupa Software solution, into their Coupa Software instance, making sure that they are always on the cutting edge of what's coming. And speaking of what's coming, all of us are very aware that AI is, well, the new thing on the horizon there. It's probably a a big of a change as the Internet itself. I would argue, if you remember, well, probably twenty, twenty five years back, maybe, depending on how soon your you witnessed that. Google was kind of coming up with just one search bar, and it kind of changed everything. Similar to that, I think, this is what AI will be doing. So Coupa is not sleeping on that innovation for sure. We are heavily embracing it, making sure it's the foundation of our applications and platform itself. And throughout the overall journey, this is what we make available to our customers. So for sure, we have sort of a chatbot like functionality, which we call through by Navi. Very important to give it a name. It's also sitting on my little bookshelf here, so we have a little Navi there. It's also a nice icon. And throughout the Coupa journey from supply chain design and planning all the way through intake sourcing, contract management, all the way over to the pay to pro, to the pay process, right, invoice management, and then in the end payment analytics. This is where we apply AI. And not only what we have now perceived as generative AI, so, you know, the chatbots you talk to, the Microsoft Copilots or JetGPTs. So not only generative AI, but also, the AI that has been around for a while, which we have in price. So spent analysis is typically using deep learning capabilities, machine learning, if you're familiar with those kind of things. So we apply it to plenty of places, especially where it makes sense because we're looking for these, interesting use cases, interesting business cases where, actually, AI can deliver more, than just, let's say, having a nice feature, that looks impressive but doesn't do much. We very much have to look for the value add also with with AI capability because, you know, AI isn't for free. It's very resource hungry, one in compute resources and also in electricity kind of topics. So, yeah, you probably heard of that in the news. Hence, while we want to apply it where it really brings an added value and added benefit, we see very great success in the supply chain design and planning topic where we can really have AI come up with nice models around that. So scenarios where we can optimize even further than what you came up with yourself. But then for sure, we see it a lot of on the intake and end user side of things where it just helps end users get what they need, all the way through in sourcing, suggesting the right suppliers in the right categories, creating events for you all the way to procurement, where it helps you fulfill your requests, go to market with the accord appropriate things. And then, obviously, in invoice management, we all know OCR, that that's been a little bit in the past. So, going beyond OCR capabilities, having, for example, automatic format mappings for certain invoice types or invoice formats, like now in Germany to, since recently, generate, where we have some dedicated formats for this kind of meta. And then I mentioned in the end spend analysis already. So just giving you some ideas where we apply AI, and we are looking forward to, do that even further, coming up with many more, use cases and ideas. Our list is very long of what we think where AI can help us. And with that, I would like to hand over to Stephan to introduce a little bit of what KPMG brings to the table when it comes to deploying a solution like Coupa here. Yeah. Thank you very much, Alex, and great overview. And, obviously, many of you know KPMG. Maybe some of you from more of the audit perspective, but, obviously, we do a lot of, advisory and consulting work as well. With that, we we have started very early in twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, basically, to work together with Coupa because we we thought, obviously, Coupa has has potential and and huge potential solution wise for organizations in procurement, basically helping to transform the procurement, environment and the processes and the way work is done in procurement. We we are one of the largest implementation partners, for for Coupa as well globally, obviously, doing, smaller projects, to up to large global projects with with many different countries involved, different complexity levels. We support clients as well in in doing pilots or POCs, so all kind of things. And, obviously, important for us is that, that we always considered, not only from procurement perspective, but end to end perspective and making sure that, we we take those those project as transformation projects as they are and not simply, implementation projects. And, we have, let's say, baked our, experiences into our powered procurement approach, which is kind of our model that we use. And you see the the flow below here, where, obviously, the the project is not only, from a vision phase, and we will come back to that later, goes up to the evolve phase. So once you are alive and you you have stabilized, but, further want to to, fully leverage the performance of the Coupa tool as well, But also, obviously, project management, supplier enablement, and also to change management are key activities, which are running idly, shortly before the project starts, but, at least, do throughout the project and then maybe even off the the project. But we'll come back to to some of those aspects later. And I think, a lot of theory as of now, and I think it makes sense that we we get a practical example. And I think there's no one better than than Rene, maybe taking us through, what is Durr actually for those who does not know the company, but also then through your journey in procurement transformation. Alright. Thank you very much, Stefan. And then let's see. So that's a nice segue. Stefan did my segue over to you, and I keep going. I click for you. You click for me. So then we jump one page further, and, then I will introduce just briefly Durr Group for those who don't know Durr Group. We're German based engineering company mainly focused on project business. We have roughly €4,700,000,000 of turnover in 2024. We have approximately 20,000 people around the globe, and we are organized in three divisions. So the biggest division is the automotive division. So we do, on one side, robots for paint shops, robots for ceiling applications, also in paint shop and the paint shops themselves. Then we have the furniture and building systems. This is the division of home markets, the division wood. They focus a lot on, yeah, furniture making, but also on a wooden house building. And then we have the industrial solution. Industrial solutions means, we have, from rotating business, which is Schenck. We have, automation business within the PAS. It's the former BBS group that has been, acquired back in 2023. And, this is how we are organized within the company. You can see there also how we are distributed around the globe. So we're a global company, stock listed, and, with all pros and cons to that. So next page, please, Alex. This is just a brief overview of what we are doing. So we have the automotive part, which is roughly €2,100,000,000 of turnover. You have the woodworking business with 1,400,000,000.0 of turnover, and then you have the industrial automation with roughly a billion of turnover. And you can see that it has been announced just a week ago. We had a business, that is Clean Technology Systems, which did not fit anymore into our portfolio, in the strategic portfolio, and we will, we have sold that kind of business last week. So next page, please. So then we come to Coupa. The journey, implementing an SMM system within Durr Group has started long before I joined the company. So the history goes back into the year 2014 when, Durr Group has acquired Hallmark, and they found out that Hallmark wanted to implement an SRM system. And Durr Group said, hey. Wait a minute. We have something. It's a little bit too customized. Let's do something together. And during that, we had a lot of attempts and a lot of approaches to really implement in the year in SRM system. A lot of steering committees and often failed on the last stage, and we failed because, procurement was not talking with one voice. And this is, something that just really, was curious to me. Then the project leader, after the final, approach said I don't do it anymore. And, that was in parallel at the time when I was building up the indirect procurement for the dual crew. And I said, SRM will be one of my key strategic pillars in that one, and I need it. And then if you look into the, source to pay initial situation that we have, we have multiple ERP systems. We still have that. So we need something to connect, and we also need, something that consolidates supplier data and spend data in one point. Then, we have huge saving potentials, but we did not know where we spend it because it took us weeks and months to consolidate data and accept templates and POs to just to see where the spend is. We have a lot of manual workflows, a lot of manual processes, and, was also no company wide risk management as well as a really supplier evaluation that we had in that. So these were the pillars and the the the initial situation where I started. And what I did in this project is, I started back in 2022, with a pre project harmonizing the processes within the dual procurement. Yeah. Because without that pre step, it's very difficult to implement an SRM system. You need to have at least a partial process harmonization. Otherwise, it will be become very, very, very difficult. So if we step to the next slide, the functional scope, and this is a little bit, colorful, but, this is basically the source to pay process that you see on the top line, and then you have source to contract entity, the actual p to p process. And what I was also looking for is to have one platform that covers all. So, we could have taken best of breed approach, of course, but, I always thought about the people that will be working with that kind of system. So if you'd go for a best of breed approach, you might have seven to eight different tools in the SharePoint page, and you need to jump from one tool to the next tool to the next tool, and this is something I didn't like. So I wanted to have it integrated into one suite. And, what we have set live, as of today is the SIM module, so complete supplier onboarding process. We have a risk aware and performance life, so we have supplier evaluation. We have the risk management processes. We have all the certificates in the in the system. Then we have, on the strategic sourcing side, standard sourcing, and we also decided to go for CSO. So Coupa Sourcing optimized into that process because, we already had a center of excellence that was focusing around game theory and auctions, and it was a great benefit giving that kind of tool to those people so that they have something on hand where they can run complex, complex RFQs, complex auctions, and it's really paying out. And then, last stage, this was our release, one point zero in back in November 2024 was the contract management. Contract management, where we collect all the data that we have from the different entities, from the different divisions, from the different countries. So we have now all contracts in one place. And then we also did, just last week, we've given access to these contracts to every buyer in the world so that they can at least check if there's something that did another entity already make a contract with the supplier? What are the conditions? And, what my commodity managers have to do, also, they don't like it, is they check those contracts for landed cost factors because we will see we have seen their huge differences between the divisions. What we've done just, three weeks ago, we've set life to re two point zero, and this one focuses completely on indirect procurement. So we have, set life the requisitioning. We have set life the approval flows. We're working with, Coupa PO sent directly to the suppliers. We copied the goods received from our SAP systems back to Coupa. And as of today, so far, it's working just fine. So no bigger complaints. Approval flows work. Requisitioning works, and it was a hell of a job that the team has done here. But, we are absolutely perfect with that one. Then, what you can see on the bottom is the ERP systems around production material. And this is, has been, run through a POC, so proof of concept has been done. It's finished. I will see the results tomorrow, because we want to utilize Coupa as platform to transport the production material POs to the suppliers, having it back via CXML or via the CSP portal and say order confirmations and the order confirmations directly into our ERP systems. This will create a lot of, capacity, especially on operational procurement, and it will also give me the spend that we have with the suppliers in one platform. So there are two sides of that. I have to spend in the platform. I can see the documents, but it will also ease the work of the operational procurement. And that was the the really big step moving, production material and indirect material into one platform. Use standard sourcing. This is what they're doing really extensively in indirect procurement. Direct procurement is now starting to use standard sourcing as platform for their RFQs, and it really pays out. So if you scroll to the next page. So and then highlights in six months, and I think this is important. It's also important for the audience. Supplier management. We have, created a change, support process. So supplier change process is available now. We've also created a short lane process. So you might you will always have a supplier that you need immediately, so you need some sort of a fast lane process. All the other suppliers are running normally, but we've eased out this process a lot. So in the beginning, we were thinking about having all the legal requirements, sustainability requirements covered in one process, but we planned that out to, really now working process where all the requirements that we, actually need are covered, but it's not taking too long because we found at the beginning that the supplier creation for Sysla was, like, twenty days, because, people had to answer things in the platform, things in third party programs that we connected, and this was taking much too long. We have we had 340 suppliers that have connected via the portal to CSP to, to which is great. On the CSO side, this is a standalone module, so you don't need any peer peer integration. We had eight awards, 12 e auctions, €6,900,000 of purchasing volume that we transferred through through that, and we saved 2,200,000.0, which is great. So the target that I've set in the beginning was like 30 auctions in 2025 to the divisions, and I think that the the target right now as of today is too low. Yeah. On standard sourcing, this is, today mainly used by my, indirect procurement department. They've, they've you they've found that using standard sourcing really gives them not only a saving potential, but also a process benefit. So, normally, you run your RFQs via your p system or you run them via email to your suppliers, but having them structured in the portal. And in case somebody gets sick, somebody else can take over immediately. And you see everything transferred in the platform. You see the quotations that come back from suppliers. You can do a price comparison immediately. You can step from the price comparison, to an awarding. You can step to an auction. You're free to do that, and, they've saved this for sourcing events like €600,000 with 2,600,000.0 purchasing volume, which is great. And they have also started training all the buyers within the indirect procurement department so that they just use Coupa. They don't work with emails anymore. They don't work with Excel tables. They use Coupa. On the contract life cycle management, so this is what I mentioned before. It's live now. Everybody has access. And, on the project management side, this is something that's really important and not to underestimate. Know how transfer from KPMG to us is running because I don't want to work I I like Stefan and I like the team of KPMG, but if I I want to work, I want to be able to roll out Coupa on my own. Yeah? So I I don't want to work here forever with KPMG on that one. So all the tasks in the project managements are documented in Jira, and the process documentation in Signavio has started and is on a good stage. Alright. So the three levels of adapting. So, basically, something not to underestimate. You need to to start with the change management process as early as possible. So we decided the day we kicked off the Coupa project was in the Durr Group that we will start the change management stream immediately. So we need we needed to have, engagement and inclusion. So open communication, feedback, involving stakeholders, identify change champions. So really empower people that are pro change and pro system. And also, we have, conducted a huge trainings session, lot of support sessions, a hotline for the people, documenting, everything's available in the SharePoint. So in case you've missed out a training, you want to look how it works, there's a click guide quick guides to everything. And it's not to underestimate how that you need to start with the change management process as easy as as early as possible. So then what was also important to us, and this was basically one of the things why we also decided for Coupa, is I wanted to have a user friendly solution. So I I always say, if you're able to buy at Amazon at home, you can use Coupa. So this is the view I want to give to people. And what's also important in that regard is process improvement. And process improvement, in that case, doesn't only mean that you, improve your processes. It's also means that you look what the platform is capable of because it's much easier to change an error or or a box in Visio than to customize the system. And oftentimes, it's not worth customizing the system to your current processes, but stick with the process the program gives you. And then, of course, you need to always publish, success stories, and this is what the change management team did a lot. So they they advertised. They had communications. They had mailings out. All of that stuff so that really you can see this is what has been installed so far. This is how it's working. This is what we have achieved, and you need those kind of stories everywhere. And then you have establishing KPIs and guidelines. And this was something, that we in in our group of sourcing board aligned on, we had guidelines. Clear guard rails. You can drive on the on the Autobahn on lane one to three, but you don't leave the Autobahn, and this is really important. You need to communicate that. You need to communicate the policies and the expectations that you have in that. Then, of course, we have performance metrics. So we implemented KPIs on the Coupa usage. We tracked those KPIs. We can also now see on the the release two point zero with purchase requisition to PO who's still using SAP but could use Coupa. So we did not make a hard cut there. We made a soft cut. We still go to September until we make the hard cut. And, of course, you need to have the team accountable for the things that they are doing. I just asked you loud here. I think we skipped the slide, kind of how what to do before the project starts. Should I go quickly try to go back there? Although the order is now a bit off. Yeah. You can go. You can if you want to. It's for sure. Okay. So it it wasn't me, apparently. It's slightest flag, unfortunately. Okay. Okay. Well, that works. Yep. Many picking stuff up, what we have there and what to do before the project and then kicking it off into the sort of panel discussion then, I think that's also a good good segue over. Yeah. We already is it Alex, we already have two questions here. They are in in a q and a session. Then there's there's one that's coming from Andy, yeah, that I mentioned, supplier onboarding takes up to twenty days. How quickly oh, well, now it's jumping. How quickly did you say had you managed to make this? So, we realized in that in that process, actually, that we tried to create a monster that was covering everything. So we we tried to come we tried to, cover legal requirements, sustainability requirements, German supply chain act all in one. And this would have been feasible if we would have allowed the suppliers to onboard themselves to to the Durr Group. So then I would be fine with having all those hurdles in the process. But we've changed that process. We want our buyers to, request a supplier, and and they have to make sure that everything is there. So, we managed to make this, to be to ease this process, We are now down to five to six days in case everything needs to be followed. But we are much we we've become much quicker, so it takes one to two days because we made the buyers accountable for bringing all the documents that we need. So they're required. They're necessary. And, this is how it works like. I I would just just pick out this one because I would like I would like to answer that right now because this this is something when you go into this process, deeply and look at it, What have what you have made different? This is one of the things I would have made different. Okay. Then maybe quickly before we go to the full q and a section, keep the questions coming. Just wanna kick off sort of the panel discussion and also, get KPMG and Stefan here into the mix and into the loop. So feel free to chime in there. You mentioned that you your vision was to have direct and indirect in one platform that that was key for the users basically to have one system to go to. Can you explain that a little bit more why that was the vision, why it's important, and how it maybe actually worked in the end? Mhmm. So why it's so important? I wanted to have a suite. The best of breed approach would have also been feasible for us. But, imagine you're a buyer. You're sitting in front of your SharePoint, and you need to click tool a for CLMA. You need to click tool b to see the spend. You need to click tool c to see how many POs have been transferred left and right. And this is just not comfortable. Right? Yeah. It might be best of breed solution, and everybody knows that Coupa is not the golden icon or something. You need to work with it. But if you think about the bias really having to use different tools, and I've I've been into that situation in my past already where they had six or seven different tools. It was like, what the hell? So it needs to be in one suit, in one place, and I want to be able to jump from a contract to the spend. I want to see the POs that the supplier says. I want to check if the certificates are still valid. I want to see how many awards they have been in the past, and I don't want to switch tools and jump from left to right. And this is all this is also what's pretty much accepted by the buyer, by the audience so far. Ma'am, I think one one addition to that, I think what it was key here as well for the acceptance, is to do it in a phased approach. Right? So not each and every one with each and every functionality from day one, but rather start with the with the sourcing, to see as all driving some some performance and savings. Also always good for for management, commitments to get some results out of the project. But then also, making sure that now with with these two dot zero, the indirect process is covered and getting more experience internally with with Coupa as a tool as well now to to administrate it as as mentioned earlier. I think that that is key as well for acceptance instead of, changing each and every thing with with one shot, but basically, doing it in multiple, approaches here and and released, steps. Basically, I think that helped as well and will help as well for the direct topic. And so maybe since we are becoming so many lovely questions into the mix here, I'm trying to do the the mix here as well. There is one question about how did you manage, Maverick buying after the implementation of Coupa? Because I think that pays towards the point of having a SharePoint versus having a one go to system like Coupa. Mhmm. That's for me. Yeah. That's basically for me, I guess. So how do we manage Maverick buying? You will always have Maverick buying. Also, Coupa will not give you a 100% assurance that it will not be there. But, we have a defined catalog of categories that is where it's okay to have Mavericks. So I don't want to be involved in my board headhunting a new CPO. I don't want to know that. Yeah. I don't even want to know what they're doing on that one. I don't want to be involved into some legal issues. So if they need an attorney, they just because they do an an an something in on m and a, I don't want to know that, and my buyer shouldn't know that as well. The rest of the stuff, we're quite strict on that one. We we are monitoring it. We are also monitoring the categories on the invoices that pop in. So we have a monthly reporting on that. And, we talk directly to the people that are doing it. If it does not help, we will talk to the managers and the people, and, normally, that works out just fine. So the the rate of, Mavericks has been going down quite a lot. So we've just sent it out to the finance executive for two or three weeks ago. We had a Maverick, ratio of, 23 to 24% back in 2024. In 2025, state, May, we were like 9%. And there were the categories in that where where we have said it's fine that it's they they are not covered with the with the source to pay solution. Alright. Thank you. I think, I'm gonna chime in with another question here as well from from my end because, one thing that you mentioned was transparency, trying to get an overview of, yeah, using Excel and whatever means of tools are available in the beginning, before, anything that Coupa was in place. Now one specialty of Coupa is obviously to focus on KPIs, right, to track success and monitor where you are. Do you have anything you can share around that? You mentioned already the savings you have generated with some sourcing events. But, to what extent are you using KPIs that would track your sort of progress and performance overall? Mhmm. So we use a a bunch of KPI settings here. So one one thing is, of course, the savings that we have. The other thing is the user adoption rate that we're actually tracking how many users are locked into the platform, how often do they use the platform. We also track, the supplier evaluation, because this is really important to us. We did not have a real supplier evaluation process in the beginning, so each division was doing something on their own. We're now tracking that, this is feasible. We're tracking that the certificates are up to date. So, we have to remind the setup in the system. We're tracking also the usage of a CLMA content creating, the the contracts themselves. So there's a lot of things that we're doing there. I could share that, but it would take an hour. Yeah. I think maybe maybe one remark to that, obviously, because I think when you mentioned it with the example of the supply onboarding process. And so, obviously, with the with flexibility of the tool and, we started with a very lengthy, supplier onboarding process with with a lot of, yeah, questions and certificates being required. And, obviously, now there's a it's a shorter way of onboarding as well for for files which are urgently needed. And, obviously, I think those kind of content monitoring, so how some things are used in Coupa, what kind of templates are used, what kind of NDAs, how which kind of forms are always good as well to see how the user adaption is is going and how, it impacts the the processes actually. Because, obviously, you can see then as well people maybe often after go live asking for where is, specific form for specific process. And then you realize once it is there, it's not that often used as well. So it always helps you as well to increase the efficiency going forward to really look into the the contents and how the contents are used in Coupa. And, obviously, we've released two dot zero that extends into into catalog usage as well and those kind of things. So that that help as well as the the efficiency in the processes and making sure you cover the right process with the right tools and forms. Nextiva, maybe, Daniel, a good segue on that is, maybe can you share as well of how organizations, yeah, can best prepare for successful and effective implementation? And as a quick follow-up on that, we have a question. If, Coupa is implementing itself as well, do I always need a partner like KPMG? So maybe you can take this one as well. Thank you. Sure. Maybe for preparation, I will keep that short because, obviously, there's there's plenty of things you you can do up front, and I think some some have been mentioned already. I think first of all, it's it's four major topics from my point of view. First one is getting the management commitment, because, obviously, it is not only, let's say, deploying a tool at the end, but it requires changes. There will be changes to processes as well. There will be impacts on on day to day business, how people work. There may be some shifts between IT and procurement or other departments. So there's a lot of change required. So, obviously, it requires the the management commitment as well. Second part is the upfront organizational alignment. So, yeah, you have to stake all those aligned, basically. They know what is coming up. Ideally, you have to in involved already maybe in the tool selection process. But, before the project starts, obviously, they know what is coming. They they make sure that the resource capacity is there. If it's controlling, if it's IT, if it's procurement, whoever is needs to be involved so that, the the alignment on the stakeholder side is there. And then, the the third important point is basically the, yeah, what do you want to achieve? So commit clearly on objectives. Is it, around, increasing performance, driving savings, reducing cycle times? Is it important as well to to maybe replace other tools or maybe, as as Lenny mentioned, make it in one suite solution, basically, but really having objectives as well because those objectives then can be used once you go into the design discussions, around the Coupa processes to make sure as well that you stay on track towards your objectives. Because, obviously, even with a great tool, the more approval steps you define, the longer the approval cycle time will be at the end. If you want to reduce that, that's obviously something then, to to to consider the range of design. And then, usually, I would say there's a couple of of homework which can be done upfront. And Rene mentioned process harmonization. So if if process harmonization is one of the of the key targets, obviously, this is something you can you can do before the the actual implementation or transformation project starts. And, also, there's other activities like data cleansing, which always can be done upfront if if you have the feeling that your supplier master data, maybe needs to be refreshed to make sure as well that you don't load every in each supplier that you had in the past twenty years into the new tool as well. And, obviously, there's a great, time before the project and during the project to start with those kind of of cleansing activities, upfront. And, does that and coming back to the question, Alex, that you mentioned from from the q and a as well, does that always require an implementation partner? But, technically, obviously, you can you can implement with Coupa Software as well. So Coupa Software can support you in projects, for for projects with, let's say, higher complexity or where also more support on on change management, as mentioned earlier, is required on supplier onboarding and content enablement. I think then, obviously, it might make sense to to involve with a partner, but, both options are available, at the end. Got it. And maybe from our end, we are typically involved in projects, so we are also part of key, sort of, workshops assuring overall project success. And I think this is the main message. Right? We we like to look at, customers in the sense of how can we make you successful, and that's per se irrespective of the implementation partner or Coupa Software doing it directly. Right, so it can be both or it can be the best fit, whatever is needed for the customer itself. So just from my end, I think, maybe that's also a nice segue. Wendy, can you say a few words about your project overall? Was it, sort of in time and budget as expected? Were there any major hiccups? Could have been prevented or not, or is it very unusual and everything went smoothly, slight breeze? But you mentioned already a few things there. Not, it's I think it's the same like in every project. You you do your planning, and then life happens. So we, of course, had some hiccups. This is also why we, we we've cut the release of Coupa into phases. So we decided to go for, the the cure of the system first, which is SIM, CSO, CLMA, standard sourcing. And, then we went to phase two, which is indirect, and then now we go to phase three where we include a direct material. And this is so what Stefan mentioned before, you can do it, of course, with a big bang, but going into phases, maybe piece by piece to the end users is much more feasible. And, when when it comes to hiccups and things that I would have done differently, I already mentioned the supplier onboarding process that with Monster that we've created. I will do that one differently. I would also I I can only recommend picking up what Stefan already said. What people most of the times underestimate is the effort that you have to take or to bring into data cleansing, and data cleansing is super important. We've underestimated that. We're we're we're still on data cleansing for the global rollout that is, up next, and, we really completely underestimated that because you need to have accurate data. Otherwise, you will have duplicates in Coupa, which you would like to avoid. So we would you will have duplicates anyway if you connect multiple ERP systems, but you need to find a a way to have it within one ERP system that you now have connected that you don't have any duplicates at all. Alright. Thank you. I think it's time for sort of to wrap up our little panel and then move to remaining questions quickly. So just to me a quick summary then, it's good to have a clear mandate It always helps. Right? Otherwise, it's hard to define core principles among, a large organization. Then, obviously, do your homework if possible, either upfront or during the project, but it needs to be done anyhow. Yeah. I think your decision for a platform versus best of breed shows that some sort of of a one stop shop is is the way to go, both for direct and indirect. And in the end, I think get the best partner, whoever that may be, who buys the solution on KPMG potentially as a good implementation partner for sure. Very experienced also in the automotive industry, I can say. Yeah. With that, I think we head to the remaining questions we have. We already have answered some good ones, so bear with us a few seconds. I think I see three more here, coming up. I think a quick one on the answering side is you to Rene is you are using, any other system for sourcing, I believe. That was a question. Oh, it's gone now. But I believe not right. It's the CSO you mentioned and the sourcing itself. Yeah. I think I've already answered that one in the chat. So, it was around direct procurement, if they're using a different tender tool, no, they don't. They use, email and Excel tables, and they're moving into Coupa stepwise now. Alright. Then I think one more for you is how many different ERP systems, do you have at Durr Group, and which ones are connected to Coupa? Mhmm. We have a bunch of different ERP systems. So we have, at least five SAP systems that need to be connected. One is already connected. This was our pilot. We're now moving, to the second division. So global rollout of the pilot entities. So everything that's on the same SAP system, then we're moving to the second division. But we also have a bunch of non SAP ERP systems where we are trying to figure out how to connect them without creating too much hiccups in the in the Coupa system afterwards, but, we will manage. Alright. Maybe on the integration side, there's another question here, for you, Rene. Will you reduce or avoid any EDI connections if you ever had them? The routing supplier communication for direct to your Coupa is the connection. Yeah. And and this is actually what we are doing. So, it's direct EDI connections, from from the experience that we've gathered those past years. They're, they're complex. Then you need to do you need a lot of work to set them up. They're difficult to maintain. You need to make data accuracy and everything really clear and try to test it several times. So direct EDI connections to suppliers will we will stay on the level that we are that we are as of today. We will not change that. But all the new suppliers that are coming up will be connected via Coupa supplier portal or directly via via via CXML over the portal because it's much easier for us, to set that up, and, Web EDI is accessible everywhere. And there was a direct EDI connection. If you change something, you have a new release, you always need to 2di. Still run-in the right direction, and this is something that we do want to avoid. Mhmm. Alright. Maybe in that context, just from my side, there's also a lovely module called PO collaboration helping out quite a bit on all of these typically direct integration topics, allowing you for a PO confirmations and other stuff. Right? Changes, even automation, in the sense of reading automatic email replies from systems receiving the purchase order. Coming up with two more. I think I tried to squeeze them in here. How many admins do you have, and are they all from procurement department? I love that question. If you could also maybe chime in a little bit on effort from keeping the system the way it is, because it's always a good question we get. Yep. So we we right now have, six admins, and they are not all from procurement side. And it's not nothing against IT. IT is important because you need IT to set up all the interface and make sure it runs. But, we have four business admins as of today, and this is the simple reason was also a decision criteria to go for Coupa. I wanted to be in a state where I can say the approval chain, my board wants to see everything that's above €100,000, admin change it without raising an IT ticket and not knowing when it will be covered or answered by IT. And, this is really something IT is important in that one, and they need to make sure that interfaces and everything is working and the connections to the ERP systems. But, the business admins create a lot of flexibility in the process, and I want to have those flexible this flexibility here. So one of the criteria is why to go for Coupa. Okay. Then last one, and it's also to Rene, I guess. How did you select Coupa as opposed to other competitors, if you can talk about it to whatever extent you like? Oh, so this was, we had a big, big, big, beauty contest. Let's let's put it that way. We did not look into smaller SRM systems. So we we looked into the big five. And, we found, that some of the solutions were not the right thing for us. Other solutions, had different releases for customers. And then the third solution I had, when I was working with, with KUKA at that point in time, And I'm I still remember my head of indirect procurement complaining about that solution every single day in my office. So it's the decision criteria for KUKA was quite simple. So one suite covering the whole process, easy to use, and without too much IT effort so that you are able to customize things on your own. Yeah. And I think to to add to add to that maybe, Alex, what what we see often obviously as a decision criteria is also kind of, standardization. And, obviously, Coupa works for many different clients of different sizes and different regions and industries. And, always the question is if if all of those clients can cover their their processes in Coupa, then, obviously, there's potential as well that that you and your company can do the same as well. So Coupa helps as well you standardizing. And, obviously, as mentioned, with with three releases per year, obviously, that is required as well to fully benefit of the new functionalities that are that are coming in, like Alex mentioned in the beginning with AI, for example. So, obviously, that makes needs to make sure that you have, a standard as well established. And, basically, with the standard, you have obviously some adaption possibilities, but, not changing and customizing and configuring, everything out of out of sync, basically. And then once the next release comes, you will you will need a lot of time to upgrade. So I think that is one of the advantages as well that we see for many customers. Perfect. Yeah. I think with that, I'm gonna close our lovely panel discussion, share a few last last thoughts on the last, topic here because I think from our end, it's very important for customers to understand that Coupa is built for that. Right? We have more customers than employees. If we would be busy with three releases for per year, just doing upgrades, if every customer would have a project, that wouldn't fly. Right? So, definitely, this has to go smooth. That's why configuration is among the standard offering for all customers. You cannot sort of mess up your Coupa implementation that it's not upgradable. So it's, designed to work like that, to scale like that. It's true cloud. And this is, in the end, why I think organizations are able to maintain their own Coupa solution just like when you mentioned those four admins, I think. They're not full time jobs, admins. They're part time. They're, making sure you have stand ins during vacation and other off times. So it's not a full duty, but you can manage your own system, and that's the the whole intention. Right? So you're not reliable on on provider itself. You're not reliable necessarily on KPMG, although they will help. I'm sure. So that's the main idea, and that's why our customers are successful. So with that, I would love to thank the round. Thank you, Rene. Thank you, Durr Group, for being part of this. Thank you, KPMG and Stefan. I'm sure if there are any questions, they can reach out to you. They can reach out to us. There will be the recording available. There's also some assets available here on the right side, I think, from your screen, on the docs for you to download. And I just wanna mention a few more talks, coming up here. There's a PTP and AI, including our intake, solution coming up in July. There's also another one on direct spend in August, that's gonna be featuring me again. And then there's a virtual roundtable. It's hosted from The US side of things, but it's in the afternoon. So you can happily scan those, QR codes there and then you are able to join. And, I want to thank you for that, and I hope I didn't go overtime too much, but but we are still within the hour. We would love to get your feedback on the session if that was valuable to you, and if you have any other recommendations for us. There should be a little feedback survey popping up, for you to answer, and we would love to hear from you back on that. And with that, thank you to your round, and thank you to our audience. I think with that, we we can close. Thank you very much. Very much. Thank you.