Expanscience simplifies purchasing process with Corcentric Procurement Solution

The Goals

• Simplify and digitalize the Procurement process
• Migrate from Corcentric’s legacy onpremise P2P to the Cloud solution
• Improve internal purchasing control at subsidiary in Mexico

The Challenges

Expanscience had been using Corcentric’s on-premise Procure-to-Pay solution to manage its indirect purchasing processes since 2007. As an on-premise system, Corcentric P2P was installed on the company’s servers and managed by their own IT department. Updating the tool was complex, and internal teams did not benefit from any of the advantages of Corcentric’s SaaS Procurement Solution.

The other challenge for Expanscience involved improving internal controls around procurement processes at its subsidiary in Mexico through a digital transformation strategy.

“Indirect purchases from our subsidary in Mexico were managed in Excel, and the approval of purchase requests was done manually,” says Jean-Marc Journo, Application Project Manager for Expanscience. “It was critical for Expanscience to ensure spend compliance throughout the company by aligning approval channels across all regions.”

The Solution

In 2019, Expanscience made a strategic choice to accelerate its digital transformation by opting for a cloud-based Procure-toPay solution. Change management was an essential component to successfully completing this migration project, since the company had missed several updates to the platform. To prepare for this transition, Expanscience reviewed its parameters and approval processes. Corcentric worked closely with Expanscience during the implementation phase.

“Revising our parameters was essential for getting off to a good start with the Procurement Solution on the Corcentric Platform,” says Journo. “For Example, we went from 600 purchasing categories to 150, which improved the quality of the data entered along with the management of purchases. We have also simplified our organizational structure in the Procurement Solution.”

In 2021, Expanscience subsequently deployed Corcentric’s Procurement Solution at the subsidiary in Mexico to improve the internal control of purchasing. This deployment was an opportunity to implement and optimize management of Mexican taxes, as well as adapt existing user interfaces (UI) to better meet regional requirements.

“Thanks to Corcentric’s implementation methodology, the schedule and objectives of the P2P cloud migration project were met,” says Journo. “We therefore relied on this methodology to deploy the solution to our subsidiary in Mexico.”

The Results

The Procurement Solution on the Corcentric Platform is currently leveraged by 300 users who make nearly 15,000 purchase requests per year from 2,500 suppliers. All non-stored purchases such as marketing, consultancy services, equipment, and maintenance now go through the Corcentric Platform.

The migration to the Corcentric Platform brings many benefits to Expanscience, including:

• Flexibility and agility that evolves quickly and easily to meet changing company needs
• Simple, autonomous solution configurability that keeps pace with organizational developments
• Accessibility from any terminal
• Streamlined collaboration
• Continuous innovation thanks to automatic updates
• Control of infrastructure costs
• Data security

“The Corcentric Platform Procurement Solution has been very well received by users; 100% of Indirect Purchasing goes through the tool,” says Journo. “The userfriendly interface and functionality of the tool have been key to achieving this goal.”

By migrating to Corcentric’s platformbased Procurement Solution and revising its processes, Expanscience has successfully:

• Digitized of its procurement processes
• Centralized purchasing data to facilitate value extraction
• Aligned purchasing processes across the company and subsidiaries
• Improved internal controls
• Achieved full visibility and traceability of expenses
• Implemented data separation and security between headquarters and the Mexican subsidiary
• Reduced errors related to purchase classification
• Streamlined solution and platform administration

“This migration was an opportunity for Expanscience to benefit from the advanced technology of Corcentric’s platform-based Procurement Solution, as well as to rethink our parameters,” says Journo. “By simplifying the organizational structure of our company in the application, we have also improved flexibility. We can now easily adapt the platform to our needs and changes.”