Students optimize Ariba purchasing process at SPAR
- 26.05.2023
- Practical Project
Students examined the purchasing processes of the SPAR retail chain to identify process optimization opportunities.
A practical project of the Master's program in ERP Systems & Business Process Management at the University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol gives students an insight into the processes of the SPAR supermarket chain, in order to contribute to optimization through their analysis.
SPAR Österreichische Warenhandels AG is the largest retail company in Austria, with around 90,000 employees and an annual turnover of 17.4 billion euros. The Austrian branch of the SPAR Group is the largest single organization in the SPAR retail chain.
OPPORTUNITY IN PROCESS OPTIMIZATION
In large companies, small changes to established processes can ultimately have a major impact. In a highly competitive market, a perfectly coordinated process can provide an advantage that can usually be measured not only in time but also in money. For a retail company like SPAR, purchasing processes, in this case supported by Ariba software, are a core process whose changes must be handled with great care and caution, as the effects of adjustments have far-reaching consequences.
SUCCESSFUL DATA ANALYSIS WILL LEAD TO OPTIMIZATION
As part of a practical project, students in the Master's program in ERP Systems & Business Process Management used this initial situation to examine one of the many ongoing ERP processes at SPAR. They then used a precise data analysis to suggest optimizations within the company to make the ongoing processes more efficient. With the help of an external perspective, solutions were developed for processes that initially appeared very complex but could be presented more simply on closer inspection. The first tests of the proposed process improvements are currently underway and, if the results are positive, they will be implemented in the productive system.