With an integrated solutions landscape providing a single centralized tool for the company’s shared services team, Baker Hughes transformed its procurement operations and how it collaborates with suppliers in 120 countries.

It has also significantly reduced IT complexity, simplifying its solutions landscape from more than 10 procurement systems to just two applications.

Already, Baker Hughes has moved more than 50% of its invoices to SAP Business Network Supply Chain Collaboration, transmitting more than US$13 billion of purchase order spend. The average invoice approval cycle time has shrunk to 1.5 days. And having standardized processes using the SAP Ariba Sourcing solution, the sourcing cycle time is now to just 15 days.

With greater supply chain collaboration, the company is in the process of automating invoices for all spend, not just for direct spend suppliers. And Baker Hughes has also piloted programs with suppliers to exchange forecasting data and quality information to help minimize supply chain disruption.

In terms of the company’s indirect spend, the use of catalogs has given Baker Hughes better automated controls of indirect purchasing with the average catalog requisition order cycle time now less than one day. This, in turn, allowed the company to refocus its resources to analyze and reduce tail spend and provide better insight into expenditure and savings.

Elsewhere, the guided buying and Spot Buy capabilities help the company better manage maverick spending.

And using the SAP Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management and SAP Fieldglass Worker Profile Management applications for services procurement, Baker Hughes now has better visibility into and stronger control of its external workforce.