First SAP Cloud-based Ariba S2P project in China! Global Procurement Transformation over the Cloud

We are glad to share that Lenovo announces Ariba Cloud-based Procurement Transformation Project has gone-live successfully with the great support of Deloitte SAP Digital Procurement Consulting.

This is the first successful Ariba project in China with global implementation, and one of the most complicated and difficult Cloud-based Ariba projects across the world.

The Client

Lenovo is a US$46 billion global Fortune 500 company and a leader in providing innovative consumer, commercial and enterprise technologies. Its portfolio of high-quality, secure products and services covers PCs (including the legendary Think and multimode YOGA brands), workstations, servers, storage, smart TVs and a family of mobile products such as smartphones (Lenovo and Motorola brands), tablets and apps.

Lenovo's Cloud-based SAP Ariba Procurement Platform implementation project is a full function Source-to-Pay solution. It is the first successful implementation of SAP Ariba in China which was jointly made by Lenovo, Deloitte SAP Digital Procurement Consulting, and SAP Ariba. The project also enabled Lenovo to accomplish global procurement transformation upon go-live.

The Project

Lenovo needs a global Cloud-based procurement platform which integrates the procurement processes for various regions and commodity catalogues, so as to support the integration and management of its E2E procurement operation, enable web-based transaction with vendors, as well as improve efficiency and reduce costs. After rounds of comparison, Lenovo was impressed by Deloitte’s expertise and leadership in digital supply chain consulting service and SAP Ariba implementation, therefore chose Deloitte as its strategic partner to officially initiate the project from June 2016.

The reach of this transformation is considerable, involving various departments of Lenovo from Procurement, Regional Administration, Marketing, R&D, Human Resources, Finance, Tax and Legal; covering full business functions including Sourcing, Contract Management, Supplier Information Management, Supplier Performance Management, PR/PO, Procurement Budget Management, Procurement Category Management, Goods Receiving, Invoicing, Tax and Payment; including the integration with more than ten legacy systems such as SAP ECC, SRM, E-Sourcing; and applicable to over 22,000 users from various Lenovo businesses in 73 countries.

The project’s complexity, tight schedule and insufficient local resources urged Deloitte China SAP Digital Procurement Consulting to organize a cross-border team, including Deloitte China at core and Deloitte US & India, to leverage Deloitte's global resources and overcome the challenges of limited time, business complexity and global cooperation. Thanks to the dedication of Deloitte team, the upstream project (Sourcing, Contract Management, Supplier Information Management and Supplier Performance Management) successfully went live in 73 countries on 9 January 2017, and the downstream (Source-to-pay modules) also went live in 7 countries and 2 China-based factories on 13 February 2017.

The Accomplishment

With the implementation of SAP Ariba, Lenovo successfully realized the project objectives of integrating systems; as well as streamlining procurement processes, reducing procurement costs, achieving procurement compliance and visibility of procurement data. Deloitte China succeeded in developing a localized team of experienced global Cloud-based procurement consulting and implementation experts, who then became the optimal consulting and implementation partners of Ariba in local markets. Our client highly appreciates Deloitte consultants for their professionalism and dedication during the whole project. The launch of the project is also a significant step of Lenovo's roadmap to global strategic sourcing and procurement transformation.

‘Deloitte consultant team’s expertise and dedication are the key factors of project success. The success of this project lay a solid foundation for our further collaboration in the future.’

— Li Wei, Lenovo VP