Spartech Corporation
Reduce Redundant Global Business Operations with a Tailored APIA Solution
A DataServ Client since 2018
Key Results:
- Reduced headcount by 8 FTEs
- More than half of all AP invoices auto-matched through AutoVouch™
Key Stats:
- Invoice Volume 40,000+ annually
- Team Size: 500 - 1,000
- ERPs: SAP
- Industry: Manufacturing
Executive Summary
Spartech is a leading manufacturer of engineered thermoplastic sheet materials, thermoformed packaging, and polymeric compounds and concentrates. The company has four business segments and over 38 locations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe.
With 23 acquisitions over 10 years, Spartech had become highly decentralized, leading to costly redundancies in many of their business operations.
With a desire to reduce these duplications, Spartech began a shared services initiative focusing on their financial operations. Some of the goals of this project were to:
- Increase visibility into their payables process.
- Improve financial controls.
- Remove lower value processes, like data entry.
- Realize cost improvements through electronic invoice capture.
Outcomes
The consolidation of redundant business operations within Spartech’s AP departments has produced a significantly improved document workflow, lower invoice processing costs, and a dramatic reduction in employee overhead. With the AP automation solution in place, headcount in Spartech’s AP department was reduced from 15 decentralized Processors reporting to various local managers to 2 Supervisors and 4 Processors.
Now, more than half of Spartech’s AP invoices are matched through AutoVouch™ with no human touch required. Accounts payable documents remain available in the DataServ system for the entire life cycle, per the retention policy created as part of the new AP process. Users can retrieve them directly from a link in SAP or via DataServ with a google-like search experience by various criteria, greatly improving audits, vendor support, and budgeting.
Business Impact
As part of the consolidation process, DataServ provided Spartech with a comprehensive APIA solution to assist with the creation of a new Finance Shared Services center and improve Spartech’s payables process. Specific deliverables included:
- Document and data capture.
- Visibility into online workflow processing.
- Management of the full document lifecycle (retention and storage).
- Auto-matching invoices (AutoVouch™).
- Providing detailed analytics reports to the management teams.
DataServ created a tailored test plan which documented the steps to be taken prior to go-live. The testing assisted with change management by engaging users in the new process before it was rolled out.
Initialization of this project allowed Spartech’s AP processors to have one central repository to quickly locate and use relevant documents when needed, thus facilitating a standardized platform across all business units.
DataServ also provided comprehensive training on all AP system capabilities to support this program. Client Success team members conducted hands-on training sessions with the Spartech user group and supplied session recordings for future use. Training sessions included:
- Process overview.
- How documents get into DataServ.
- DataServ site navigation.
- Document retrieval processes.
- AutoVouch™ process education.
- DataServ Support process.
Thoughts from Spartech
“Spartech is always on the lookout for technological solutions that will automate our processes, enhance our cost structure, and complement our existing systems by integrating with Oracle. We believe our DataServ solution accomplishes these goals and at a much lower TCO (total cost of ownership) than traditional software. Their depth of experience and the fact that they have best AP practices embedded into their solution impressed us.”
Robert Byrne, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Spartech Corporation
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