Founded more than 350 years ago in France and with annual turnover of more than $50bil, Saint-Gobain is a world leading manufacturer of construction materials. Saint-Gobain Abrasives understood the value of managing all orders in a single platform. Saint-Gobain chose Portalink as their automation partner for global implementation.
By automating over 70 complex business rules across its operations in North America, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), as well as the Asia Pacific, Saint-Gobain Abrasives have optimized Zero-Touch and eliminated secondary touch in the ERP. Orders processed in double-quick time by Portalink are ready for pick-and-pack by the time the ERP receives them.
In 2023, Saint-Gobain further expanded its partnership with Portalink by introducing the Portalink™AnyFreight Audit-to-Pay platform to enhance compliance with global audit requirements and optimise their considerable freight management processes.
- Reduced manual order entry
- Accelerated order-to-shipment cycles
- Global freight audit compliance
Saint-Gobain Abrasives, is a leading supplier of high-performance abrasive solutions. With operations spanning most continents, Saint-Gobain Abrasives processes a vast volume of sales orders annually in a highly complex business environment. In North America, approx 50% of sales orders were processed electronically by EDI or via Saint-Gobain’s MyAbrasives B2B portal, leaving the remaining 50% to be processed manually.
The Portalink™AnyOrder system integrated seamlessly into Saint-Gobain’s ERP system (SAP) via secure API and SFTP integrations, handling sales orders centrally or at branch levels while automatically resolving multiple complex challenges such as pricing discrepancies, quote pricing, unit-of-measure variations and inventory availability.
Following the successful implementation of Portalink™AnyOrder in 28 of Saint-Gobain’s global Customer Service Centers, Saint-Gobain sought to expand the services to help them with audit compliance of millions of freight consignments received weekly in emailed PDF attachments from dozens of their freight providers. This project was the stimulus for the Portalink™AnyFreight product which instantly reconciles thousands of consignment lines with complex rate cards provided by each freight provider, automatically detecting costly discrepancies or duplications within seconds. In addition, the Portalink™AnyFreight product is able to automate GL Ledger Code allocation at header and line level and streamline payment authorization, before sending a digital file to Shared Services for payment, all of which was done manually prior to Portalink. Portalink™AnyFreight provides valuable granular data insights to Saint-Gobain’s management which were hitherto inaccessible.
The challenge
Saint-Gobain Abrasives faced multiple challenges in managing its non-EDI order processing across different regions:
- High volume of manual data entry: In North America, more than 50% of sales orders required manual entry by Customer Sales Representatives (CSRs).
- Complex order formats and error handling: CSRs manually processed a variety of customer purchase orders, often needing to resolve errors related to pricing, unit of measure discrepancies, incorrect product codes, and many other important disciplines, impacting efficiency. This was time consuming with a high risk of error. The significant regional knowledge that each CSR acquired over a period of years created high risk when an individual left the department.
- Inconsistent global processes: With a mix of EDI, manual entry and third-party systems, different countries used varied workflows, complicating standardization efforts.
- Inability to reconcile freight consignments: It was logistically implausible to meet global audit compliance by reconciling millions of freight consignments against various rate cards using manual methods.
To overcome these challenges, Saint-Gobain needed a comprehensive automation solution capable of integrating with their SAP system, handling complex business rules, and standardizing order processing and freight reconciliation across their global business operations.
The solution
1. Portalink™AnyOrder:
Saint-Gobain Abrasives selected Portalink™AnyOrder to automate the processing of all non-EDI orders within their global Customer Service operations. The Portalink system was able to capture data with 100% accuracy that could be trusted for Zero-Touch processing. An important part of the systems role was to validate all of the data in every order against more than 70 complex business rules by using a sophisticated data exchange integration methodology which is unique to the Portalink system. When an order passes validation with 100% accuracy, it is ready for pick-and-pack with Zero-Touch from the CSR’s. When Portalink discovers a data discrepancy such as incorrect pricing or UOM, the order is referred to the CSR who only needs to focus on and resolve the discrepant line/s before exporting the order to SAP with minimal touch. Portalink conforms with the same EDI file formats already deployed in each region.
Portalink’s rapid order template mapping service was able to automate thousands of customers, from the biggest to the smallest, with accurate data context that could be trusted. Most customer templates were mapped and deployed before go-live in each country.
Key features included:
- Automation of more than 70 complex business rules including complex Unit of Measure (UoM) and Pricing discrepancies.
- Centralized processing of orders with the flexibility for branch-level management.
- Integration of over 70 complex business rules, enabling standardization and efficiency across different regions.
- Rapid mapping of thousands of customer order templates in quick time.
Following the success in Australia, the solution was expanded to the EMEA region, covering 21 countries, and later to North America, including the United States, Canada and Mexico.
2. Portalink™AnyFreight (2023):
In 2023, Saint-Gobain introduced the Portalink™AnyFreight platform to automate its global freight management. This solution provided:
- Enhanced freight audit compliance.
- Automated reconciliation of freight invoices, ensuring accuracy and reducing manual checks.
- Integration with Saint-Gobain’s SAP system, ensuring consistent and efficient freight management processes across multiple regions.
- Auto GL Code allocation, simpler Authorization process and electronic invoice processing for shared services
Hours delivered back to the business
SOX compliance in Settlement process automation
Success rate of bot case completion
For functional release of OBT, RTS and OGS
The Portalink effect
Saint-Gobain has achieved several significant benefits from implementing Portalink’s solutions. By working closely with Vincent van den Berg in Europe, Rusty Kirchner in NA, and Roxana Stoica’s API team, Portalink was able to implement a solution that was world’s best practice.
In North America, Portalink lifted the number of electronic orders processed from under 50% to 90% in a little over a year, over-achieving the goal set by management:
- Reduced Manual Data Entry: Automation of purchase orders has substantially minimized manual processing time, allowing Customer Sales Representatives (CSRs) and Customer Care Centers (CCCs) to focus on proactive customer service and sales activities.
- Accelerated Order-to-Shipment Cycles: The implementation of automated business rules and digitized order processing has accelerated Saint-Gobain’s order-to-shipment timelines, improving customer satisfaction, operational efficiency and customer retention.
- Scalable Global Solution: The flexibility of Portalink’s solutions has allowed Saint-Gobain to scale the platform seamlessly across multiple regions worldwide, ensuring consistent and efficient order processing.
- A single point for Order Management: Having a single portal where all Sales Orders can be quickly and easily managed has provided a big boost to productivity. The intuitive User Interface enables new CSR’s to be onboarded and operating independently within a day or two. Not having to cross reference multiple platforms, including the ERP and by providing clear instructions for quick management of customer data errors, Portalink has greatly reduced the dependency and risk of years of retained human knowledge.
- Enhanced Freight Reconciliation: With the deployment of Portalink AnyFreight, Saint-Gobain has improved its freight management processes, achieving optimal compliance with global audit standards and significantly reducing manual effort.
I wholeheartedly recommend Portalink for your business needs. As a representative of Saint-Gobain Abrasives North America, I have had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand the efficiency and effectiveness that Portalink brings to the table.
Our company has a long history of conducting EDI and online orders. Despite this, we found that 50% of our orders were still being processed manually by a customer service representative. This changed when we implemented Portalink, a decision influenced by the success stories shared by my peers in Europe and Australia.
I approached the project with both excitement and skepticism, given my 25-plus year career of working with various software suppliers and consultants. However, the results speak for themselves. In December 2022, we negotiated, developed, and launched Portalink. Since launching we have increased the number of lines processed digitally by our business to almost 90%.
Our business model is complex, as is our ERP (SAP). Yet, the Portalink team was able to understand and meet our needs. The Portalink team was (and remains) friendly, knowledgeable, and quick to answer our questions throughout the setup. They also provide strong post go-live support to meet our availability needs in North America. I am delighted with the decision to move our customer service organization to Portalink. We are now recognizing the efficiencies in order processing and are using the saved time to redeploy our team to more proactive customer engagement.
I am a genuinely satisfied customer and am eager to share my positive experience with others.
