Procure-to-Pay Automation Case Study: 60% Cycle Time Reduction at Global Manufacturer
A global industrial equipment manufacturer with operations across 23 countries and annual procurement spend exceeding $2.8 billion faced mounting pressure to reduce costs, improve working capital management, and gain visibility into a fragmented supply base. Their legacy procurement processes relied heavily on email-based requisitions, manual three-way matching in accounts payable, decentralized supplier management, and disconnected systems that made spend analysis nearly impossible. Purchase order cycle times averaged 12 days, invoice processing cost $18 per transaction, and maverick spend—purchases made outside established contracts and preferred suppliers—exceeded 35% of total spend. Leadership recognized that incremental improvements would not suffice; they needed a comprehensive transformation of their Procure-to-Pay processes through enterprise-wide automation. This case study examines how the manufacturer implemented Procure-to-Pay Automation across their global operations, ach...