Case Study: Global Pharmaceutical Company achieves 100% paperless invoicing and VAT compliance with Direct Commerce

Major Pharmaceutical Company Eliminates Paper on a Global Scale

Global Pharmaceutical Company, a $24B business operating in 72 countries with nearly 14,000 suppliers and ~24,189 monthly invoices, needed to eliminate paper and automate complex, region- and country-specific VAT compliance across its global operations. After using Direct Commerce for eInvoicing in the U.S. and Puerto Rico since 2012, the company turned to Direct Commerce in 2016 when its prior provider could not deliver a customized VAT-compliance solution for European markets.

Direct Commerce built a global eInvoicing and VAT-validation solution that rejects non-compliant invoices, forcing supplier corrections, and was piloted successfully in Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada before wider rollouts and adjustments to integrate with Italy’s government invoicing platform. The Direct Commerce implementation delivered measurable impact: 100% reduction in paper invoice transactions, 95% transaction accuracy, 95% of eInvoice data feeding automatically into SAP, faster processing, lower administrative/help-desk costs, and complete visibility—while onboarding suppliers at no cost in local languages.