CASE STUDY

Wesco’s Punchout E-Commerce Catalog Powers Procurement

Challenge

For a large oil and gas company, safely delivering reliable energy for customers is the number one focus, and a dependable supply chain is crucial to consistently meeting that goal. At a quarterly business review to discuss continuous improvements, the Wesco global accounts and local sales teams uncovered an opportunity to streamline and speed the procurement process for the company. The company’s quoting and purchasing methods were manual and cumbersome, adding time and the potential for human errors to the process.

Solution

Our Wesco sales and e-commerce teams worked directly with the company’s contractor, who was responsible for 90% of the company’s requisitions and purchase order (PO) output, to identify areas of improvement with the current process and optimize procurement.

Summary

  • Integrated punchout e-commerce catalog
  • Reduced labor
  • 67% faster purchase order creation
  • Order approval time decreased from 48-72 hours to 15 minutes

There were many steps, but the two biggest issues were duplicated manual entry and delayed receipt of the PO. The on-site contractor manually entered each part number to request a quote via email. The contractor would then receive a paper quotation back. To create a requisition and subsequent PO, the contractor had to re-enter every single part number line by line into the company’s requisition module, including full details like descriptions, quantities and pricing. In addition to increased labor and project delays, the duplicated manual process step left room for error. It would also take 48 to 72 hours for the procurement approval process before the PO was released to Wesco electronically for processing.

Our e-commerce team coordinated with the contractor to integrate Wesco’s punchout e-commerce catalog with the contractor’s e-procurement system (ERP). To help simplify the transition, Wesco provided hands-on training to the on-site contractor and company stakeholders. Even typically slow technology adopters were able to learn the system quickly and became system champions due to the enhanced user experience and increased productivity.

Now when receiving a Wesco quote, the contractor and end user can access it directly within the ERP. They are able to “punchout” into the catalog and pull the quote back into their system as a requisition. Instead of time-consuming double manual work, using the punchout e-commerce catalog, the contractor can finalize the requisition and create a PO, sending it right over to Wesco for processing with the click of a button.

Results

This new process has a proven 67% time-savings over the previous methods. For employees who enter many POs throughout the day, this makes a big impact on their productivity and morale, as it frees up their time for more high-value work. After the orders are submitted, they are now received by Wesco within 15 minutes, helping to minimize delays and ensure parts are delivered when needed. This program is now expanding to multiple locations for the oil and gas company.

Contact your local Wesco representative to learn how our punchout e-commerce catalog can save time and improve accuracy for your business.