Daimler Spearheads Digital Transformation of Contracting and Sourcing Process with Icertis

Business Challenge

Daimler, one of the biggest producers of premium cars and the world’s biggest manufacturer of commercial vehicles, recognized that it needed to improve its agility to compete in today’s rapidly changing business environment. The systems the company used to manage its sourcing processes were decades old and fragmented across multiple platforms.

The company has more than 500,000 suppliers, and on account of its fragmented system, onboarding new suppliers required them to go through multiple systems—including non-integrated processes for issuing RFPs, selecting suppliers, and tracking suppliers’ performance and contract terms.

The automotive manufacturer wanted a contract management solution that could address these issues as well as form the foundation of a broader digital transformation that would prepare it for future success.

Solution

Daimler developed an RFP for a supplier contracting solution, and the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform differentiated itself from the competition through its robust treatment of the entire lifecycle of the contract and sourcing processes. Daimler recognized the ICI platform as providing the foundation of a new digital approach to procurement, and also took advantage of the ICI Sourcing app, a specialized business application for procurement organizations.

For employees in the procurement division, ICI made the process of publishing RFPs and selecting a proposal much simpler, and empowers buyers to use past performance and price to cherry-pick the best suppliers. Meanwhile, the legal department is using ICI better track deviations and contract lead times—data that can be used to further optimize contracting processes.

And ICI is easy to use, with the contract management platform’s software providing strong functionality while remaining easy to configure based on changing business needs. Integration with Office 365 allows users to edit contract terms directly in Word and to upload large volumes of price lists and other data via Excel.

Results

ICI was deployed at the auto manufacturer in record time—80 percent faster than its historic software implementations. Daimler is now managing its entire roster of suppliers on the platform. It is also exploring several other areas to implement ICI and is an early adopter of the ICI AI applications.

From sourcing to contracting we have gained speed, and it has made us safer. We have our risks transparent, we have our process transparent, and our buyers like the software. It's easy to use. The software guides the buyer through the process so the user always knows what to do next.

“We chose the Icertis ICI platform and ICI Sourcing app because of their ease of use, ability to address every phase in the contracting and sourcing processes, and seamless integration with third-party systems that support the entire procurement life cycle. The deployment optimizes the source-to-contract process by ensuring best-in-class supplier evaluation, selection, contracting, and collaboration.”

- Dr. Stephan Stathel, Operations Lead for New Procurement System and Team Lead for the Build2Run Team at Daimler AG