Xcitec® Supplier Management at EWE
Incorporating the Needs of Multiple Business Units (03/30/2010)

The energy company EWE in Oldenburg has successfully implemented the Xcitec®-software solution. EWE uses Xcitec® Supplier Management in its energy, network and telecommunications/IT business units. The goal of EWE’s supplier management is to provide high quality information for supplier development, tenders, price comparison and reporting to interest groups across the entire company. Xcitec® provides EWE with a company-wide solution for supplier management that incorporates the different needs of the various business units.

Potential suppliers apply to EWE in a qualification process consisting of supplier registration and a questionnaire. In order to secure high data quality in the supplier database, existing suppliers are also required to qualify themselves on a regular basis and update their information in material group-specific questionnaires.

EWE carries out supplier management in one of three different ways, depending on the business unit: as a workshop with all relevant evaluators, as an interview between purchasers and experts or as a “classic” evaluation, carried out by the evaluators cross-functionally directly in the software. Follow-up activities are defined based on the evaluation results. The supplier development activities are documented and monitored. In addition, the software solution manages a measures controlling audit on site. In addition to evaluating supplier performance, the EWE purchasing department can also regularly assess the strategic significance of its suppliers. Furthermore, the software system offers various reports and analysis options which enable EWE to select suppliers based on a comparison of suppliers and their sales conditions.

The additional Spend Analysis view by Xcitec® transparently presents the individual performance of the various EWE subsidiaries to provide an overview of the spending in different business units.

“The Xcitec® software offers us an attractive IT solution that takes the different needs of our various business units into account. During the implementation project, we were able to benefit from Xcitec®‘s wealth of experience in the energy supply sector“, says Norbert Bruns, who heads up materials purchasing at EWE.