Successful introduction of efficient and transparent dispute processing with SAP Dispute Management

23th September 2024

Vegetarian products long before plant-based nutrition became a megatrend: For 300 years, the Kühne family business has been inspiring with vegetarian innovations and uniquely delicious flavours. What began as a small vinegar brewery in 1722 is now one of Europe's largest producers of vinegar, pickles and mustard. As an independent family business, Kühne takes responsibility for the people who work there, for the world we live in and for long-term economic success.

The anniversary year 2022 marks the beginning of a consistent strategic reorientation that will continue the long tradition of vegetarianism, good products and sustainable action: Kühne's self-image as "The Veggie Company" marks the beginning of its future as a sustainable brand. This means acting courageously, being enthusiastic about things and new ideas, trusting in things and people, being open-minded and tolerant. This attitude has made Kühne successful for 10 generations and will continue to do so in the future.

This attitude is also reflected in the continuous development and improvement of the IT infrastructure to optimise the mapping of business processes in the ERP system. As part of the project, the focus was on the complaint handling process. Invoice complaints not only have a direct impact on a company's cash flow and the time it takes to collect the relevant documents, but can also have a negative impact on good and long-standing customer relationships. It is therefore in the interest of all parties to resolve complaints quickly and as efficiently as possible.

This requires transparent and centralised data management and therefore integration into the existing SAP landscape. The SAP Dispute Management component from the FSCM (Financial Supply Chain Management) area as part of Receivables Management should support the optimisation of complaints processing and present the process in SAP as a whole, without suffering significant media disruptions and at the same time simplify communication internally between the departments and externally with the customer. SAP Dispute Management offers important functions for this, forms the framework for claims processing in SAP and is fully integrated into the SAP standard FI processes.

A fit-to-standard analysis and various workshops were used to analyse the current processes, determine additional requirements for the system, identify possible GAPs and drive their implementation. Thanks to the excellent and cooperative partnership, the customisation for use and the processing of clarification cases in the system were quickly completed and the development requirements were formulated on the basis of initial tests, which were always accompanied by a highly motivated specialist department. Thanks to the excellent interaction and the iterative approach, the robustness of the development objects was verified through extensive testing, which led to a sharpening of the process steps. The aim has always been to reduce manual input by the user and to achieve partial automation so that clarification cases can be created and processed without great effort.

A particular challenge here was the automatic subsequent linking of debits and credits in the form of FI documents with previously created dispute cases, so that once a solution has been found and the relevant items have been cleared, the dispute case is automatically closed, including the recognition of a final cause of complaint, which is automatically added when the case is closed. This provides the basis for subsequent evaluation purposes and the process optimisation measures that can be derived from them. Manual processing would not have been feasible, but with the programme developed by consenso and the extensions to the case processing procedure, the necessary automation could be implemented.

The use of clarification cases in SAP has created significant added value for Kühne, as process disruptions in the entire order-to-cash process can be detected earlier, the implementation of clarification measures is now fully transparent and all information relating to the case is now available in a harmonised complaints process. This will also have a positive impact on future credit terms and reduce payment discrepancies in the system. This saves important resources and is sustainable. Not forgetting, of course, that the documented and structured recording and processing of complaints also makes it possible to evaluate customer satisfaction, identify potential problems in the customer relationship at an early stage and take appropriate action.#

The successful implementation took place over a project period of around 5 months, including extensive testing by the specialist department. We would like to thank all those involved in the project for their excellent and fair cooperation, which made the success of the project possible in the first place.

We are looking forward to the next challenges together.

Photo & Logo: Carl Kühne KG (GmbH & Co.)