Case Study: Flint Group achieves simplified, compliant cloud procurement and 65% reduction in tail‑spend with SAP Ariba

How Does Digital Procurement in the Cloud Make Buying Simple While Curbing Maverick Spend

Flint Group, a global supplier to the printing and packaging market with more than 130 centers and 6,500 employees, struggled with a fragmented, manual procure-to-order process. Without a central procurement system, approvals and invoicing were time-consuming, many invoices arrived without PO numbers, and the company had limited visibility into spend—resulting in uncontrolled maverick buying and inconsistent spend data.

Flint deployed cloud-based SAP Ariba solutions with implementation partner apsolut, using guided buying, Spot Buy and backend SAP integration to standardize purchasing and approvals (go-live in five months). The platform eliminated paper processes and purchasing cards, ensured a PO on every invoice, enabled a preferred-supplier program and bundled spend to capture rebates. Results include a 65% reduction in tail‑spend vendors in deployed countries, a 64% drop in invoices without proper POs, thousands of multilingual catalogs, and clearer spend visibility that drives cost savings and better supplier negotiations.

Flint Group

Goektuerk Simsekol

Digital Transformation Director