SAP Ariba Rollout Helps Brazilian Pharma Accelerate Digital Procurement

Brazilian pharmaceutical manufacturer União Química has taken a significant step in modernizing its procurement operations by initiating the rollout of SAP Ariba, marking a major milestone in the company’s broader digital transformation and supply chain strategy.

The São Paulo-based company, which has nearly a century of industry experience and operates manufacturing facilities in Brazil and the United States, cited the need to moive past the limitations of its legacy ERP system, to better manage increasing purchase volumes and the complexity of its multi-unit supply operations. These encompass both human-health and veterinary product lines, including prescription and over-the-counter items.

União Química chose SAP Ariba as its strategic platform to centralize and standardize the full procurement lifecycle — from requisition to payment — to bolster visibility, traceability and compliance. The SAP Ariba platform will reduce lead times for purchase requests, expand negotiation opportunities, automate processes currently handled via email, and strengthen governance by consolidating information into a single audit-ready environment.

“The implementation of SAP Ariba reinforces our vision of modernizing supply chain management with more integrated processes, analyses more qualified and greater operational agility,” said José Luiz Junqueira Simões, Executive Vice President of Operations and Technology at União Química. “We are building a technological foundation that will allow us to advance consistently, reducing manual steps and expanding the team’s ability to act more strategically, always focused on the company’s continuous evolution and following best practices of Corporate Governance.”

The in-process implementation project, led by SAP partner Alliance, is expected to go live by May, with completion slated within six months. Company leaders across functions view SAP Ariba as essential to elevating the maturity of their procurement teams and enabling data-driven decision-making.

União Química adds that besides the anticipated operational improvements, the initiative will drive faster communication and more agile analysis of supplier proposals. It also sets the stage for future transformation: Once SAP Ariba is fully deployed, the company plans to prepare for migration to SAP S/4HANA, which will unlock further digital capabilities, modern workflows and generative AI use cases.

União Química’s adoption of SAP Ariba highlights a growing trend among global enterprises to leverage cloud-native procurement solutions as a foundation for broader supply chain modernization and resilience efforts — especially as organizations look to harness real-time insights and automation to navigate market volatility and complexity.

“The adoption of SAP Ariba not only modernizes and centralizes purchasing management, but also prepares the company for a future driven by data and artificial intelligence,” says Daniel Giffoni, Vice President of Finance & Spend Management at SAP Brazil. “The company demonstrates a long-term vision by reviewing processes, seeking efficiency, and adopting solutions that generate a direct impact on the business. We are committed to continuing as partners on this journey, especially in the future transition to SAP S/4HANA and in all the innovation opportunities that will come.”