King Ocean saves $1M across its 31 offices in first year of using PLANERGY Procure-to-Pay software
- Company Overview
With over 40 years of experience, King Ocean Services specializes in maritime-transport throughout the Western Hemisphere. Serving ports in Florida, South and Central America, and the Caribbean. King Ocean Services transports various types of containerized and general cargo.
- Why PLANERGY
With a distributed workforce of 600+ staff, King Ocean Services needed to implement an automated, streamlined procurement and purchasing process, gain control over and track spend, and have access to real-time spend data. The Procurement director had used PLANERGY in a previous role at ThyssenKrupp, it was an easy choice for him.
Key Challenges
- Inefficient purchasing structure consisting of paper documents, Excel, email, and phone calls
- Lack of spend and inventory visibility
- Uncontrolled spending and no accountability; personal credit cards were used to make company purchases
- No efficient way to track trends and patterns to maximize purchases across key vendors
- Faced difficulties managing procurement across multiple sites and with staff working from home
Key Benefits
- Cost savings of $1 million during first year of using PLANERGY
- An automated, streamlined, and efficient purchasing process across the entire organization, saved hours of manual labor every week
- Full visibility into spend data
- Improved accountability and eliminated fraud-related risks
- Maximized relationships with key suppliers
- Enabled the procurement team to work remotely
The Story
Customer
Maritime logistics with 31 offices
Key client
Procurement Manager
Industry
Logistics & Transportation
Company Size
600+ employees
Before PLANERGY
Problems in procurement ranged from human error to the use of inadequate technology solutions, leading to losses in revenue, wasted work hours, and increased risks.
Across their 31 offices and 600+ employees, King Ocean did not have a dedicated procurement structure, no insight into spend analytics or budget parameters, nor were they using any type of software or technology solutions.
As explained by Maradiaga, Procurement Manager, “When I first arrived in King Ocean, there was nothing, no system. Each office and team could purchase whatever they wanted from whoever they wanted.”
Lacking visibility and financial control, managers were using personal credit cards to make inventory purchases and “expensing the company“. People were buying from the wrong vendor, buying too much, or at the wrong price. Finance and operations struggled constantly to control, manage, and report on spending.
Cristian added, “Everything was a mess. There was no central place to find out how much we were spending; if we were saving; or who the best vendors were. There was no history and this was the biggest obstacle.”
Growing exponentially at 350% per year, King Ocean needed to automate processes, and improve purchasing control, inventory traceability, accountability, and reporting on spending – this is where PLANERGY came in. Cristian remembers, “We needed a central Procure-to-Pay platform like PLANERGY to bring it all together in one info hub with workflow and visibility.”
After PLANERGY
The ideal procurement process system is designed for full visibility, efficiency, speed, and accuracy; key features of the PLANERGY Procure-to-Pay software.
Cristian shared, “in my first year we saved $1M, and we’re on track to save another $10k per month on cell phone expenses, alone.” He mentioned, “that’s what we brought PLANERGY in to do – save money.”
After collaborating with the PLANERGY onboarding team, King Ocean’s challenges regarding inventory and spend management, non–existent reporting, and maintaining relationships with cost–saving vendors were solved.
As Cristian expresses, “we were able to ‘discover’, and we’re still discovering.”
The cloud-based Procure-to-Pay software provided King Ocean with real–time spend analytics, and enabled custom workflow automation and strategic budgeting. Further, it empowered their procurement team to ‘work from home’ with ease.
“It’s accessible from any phone or browser, so we could track, create purchase orders, and get different approvals from different regional offices, without having to be there physically. It dramatically drove efficiency in our distributed workforce.” said Cristian.
He followed up by saying, “You guys helped us out a lot. I appreciate it.”
Testimonial
We saved more than $1 million on our spend in the first year and just recently identified an opportunity to save about $10,000 every month on recurring expenses.
Cristian
King Ocean Services
Logistics & Transportation
Read More Case Studies
Reducing supply costs by replacing Excel and manual processes at a logistics and supply chain management company
Meallmore's chain of assisted living facilities curbs overspending through automated control over purchasing
One platform to control and manage 100% of your company’s purchasing & payments
Trusted by the leading finance & operations teams across the world
