Case Study: Grainger achieves fully electronic procure-to-pay and automates 2.7 million documents per year with SAP Ariba

How Can the Right Procurement Technology Make Buying Simpler for Customers

Grainger, a leading industrial supplier, needed to make it easier for customers to buy by connecting its inventory, catalogs, and services directly into customers’ procurement systems. The company’s challenge was to integrate data across platforms, offer innovative buying options, and reduce procurement and inventory costs for both customers and Grainger.

Using SAP Ariba solutions — including Ariba Network, Ariba Invoice Management, catalog interchange with PunchOut, and Ariba Discovery — Grainger unified its procure‑to‑pay flow and automated order and invoice processing. The outcome: a fully electronic P2P process, 2.7 million documents transacted automatically per year, near‑real‑time access to 1.6 million SKUs, faster deliveries, lower processing costs, and over US$1 billion in connected annual spend.

Grainger

James Finn

Senior Director of E-Commerce