Case Study · Procurement & S2P
Aldara Chemical Group
Specialty chemical manufacturing. Three sites. 180 FTE. No fact base. In three weeks, ValueFlow360™ identified $5.3M in net benefit, avoided a $2.4M ERP misstep, and had Wave 1 committed before the team left the room.
"
We knew we needed to digitize and automate. But when leadership asked where to start — and what the return would be — no one could answer with data. That's why we brought in ValueFlow360.
VP Procurement, Aldara Chemical Group
The Situation
A function ready to transform.
No evidence base to build from.
Aldara Chemical Group's Procurement function was under pressure. Leadership had committed to company-wide digitization and automation. Procurement was identified as the starting point. But when the VP Procurement walked into the executive committee and was asked where to start and what the return would be, there was no data to answer with. Initiatives had been discussed for years. Nothing had been prioritized, scoped, or committed to.
Client
Aldara Chemical Group
Specialty chemical manufacturing. Multi-site operations across US and Europe. A complex, global procurement function running across three sites with significant supplier diversity, contract volume, and SAP investment that wasn't delivering its design value.
Scope
Source-to-Pay · 180 FTE · 3 Sites · 6 L2 Areas
Full Source-to-Pay scope: Procurement Strategy, Supplier Management, Category Management, Sourcing & Contracting, Order Management, and Invoice & Payment. Every activity mapped from L1 to L4 before Session 1 began.
Engagement Type
Single Workstream · Digitization & Automation
The engagement goal was to build a defensible, data-backed investment case for Procurement digitization and automation — with prioritized opportunities, dollar values, and Wave 1 committed before the team left the room.
Duration
3 Weeks · Sessions 1 to 4
From ValueAlign™ kickoff to Executive Readout: three weeks. ValueMap™ pre-populated before Session 1. ValuePulse™ survey deployed within 24 hours of Session 1. Four-pass AI analysis run overnight. Roadmap built live in Session 3.
What We Found
Six findings. All invisible
before the engagement.
The ValuePulse™ survey captured 180 FTE responses across three sites. The overnight AI ran four passes. What surfaced had never been visible to leadership — not because the problems were hidden, but because no one had ever measured at activity level.
Finding 01
61% of FTE time concentrated in just 4 activities
Supplier invoice processing, purchase requisition approval, contract renewal chasing, and vendor query resolution consumed 61% of all FTE time in the function. Every one of them was rated Transactional work type — the highest-FTE, lowest-value concentration in the operation.
FTE Effort × Work Type
Finding 02
Procurement managers firefighting — not leading
Managers were spending 60%+ of their week resolving exceptions, chasing approvals, and handling supplier disputes. Strategic category management was receiving less than one working day per week. The capacity to do the work leadership was demanding simply didn't exist.
Pain Points × Work Type
Finding 03
SAP in place — but only 34% of activities used it
66% of procurement activities were running on manual handoffs between SAP, spreadsheets, email, and a legacy contract tool. No single source of truth for supplier performance or contract obligations existed anywhere in the function.
Technology × ERP Alignment
Finding 04
Manual processes across 7 of 12 L2 areas
38% of all procurement activities were rated fully manual — no automation, no standard template. The highest concentration sat in supplier qualification, contract renewals, and purchase requisition approvals. Three of the five highest-FTE activities in the function.
Technology × Pain Points
Finding 05
Everything depends on everything else
11 of 12 Quick Wins and Strategic Initiatives had at least one upstream dependency flagged by respondents. The dependency map had never been visible to leadership before the Executive Readout. It reshaped the implementation sequencing entirely.
ValueFlow Roadmap™ · Dependency Analysis
Finding 06
Leadership rated technology enablement 40% higher than practitioners
A significant Leadership-Practitioner Divergence signal emerged in vendor management. Leadership believed the technology was working. Practitioners said otherwise — and the data backed them. This single finding reshaped the Executive Readout and avoided a $2.4M ERP investment that would not have addressed root causes.
Pass 4 · Leadership-Practitioner Divergence
The Approach
Four sessions.
Three weeks.
One committed roadmap.
Week 1
ValueAlign™ — S2P ValueMap™ validated
Nexus™ pre-populated the Source-to-Pay ValueMap™ before Session 1. The Aldara team validated 6 L2 areas and confirmed activity scope across 3 sites in a single half-day session. ValueNorth™ locked: maximize digitization and automation ROI. ValuePulse™ survey deployed to 180 FTE within 24 hours.
Week 2
Survey Debrief — Data quality confirmed, Go
Survey achieved 84% completion and 52% response rate against confirmed L2 headcount — well above the Go/No-Go threshold. Data quality flags reviewed. Overnight AI analysis triggered. Four passes run by the time Session 2 concluded.
Week 3
ValueDecide™ — Roadmap built live, Wave 1 locked
12 opportunities scored against ROI and implementation effort in the room. The ROI Priority Matrix™ built with the leadership team present. Wave 1 — 5 opportunities, $1.8M — committed with named sponsors before the session ended. The dependency map surfaced for the first time.
Week 3
Executive Readout — Seven deliverables, board-ready
All seven deliverables exported from Nexus™ the same day. The Leadership-Practitioner Divergence report presented privately to the VP Procurement before the board presentation. The ERP investment was restructured the following week.
Engagement at a glance
180
FTE surveyed across 3 sites
84% completion rate · 52% response rate
84% completion rate · 52% response rate
12
Opportunities identified, scored,
and phase-assigned before Session 4
and phase-assigned before Session 4
6
L2 areas mapped across
Source-to-Pay end-to-end
Source-to-Pay end-to-end
~2
Working days of client time required
across the full 3-week engagement
across the full 3-week engagement
The Results
$5.3M identified.
12 opportunities.
Three phases of value.
Every opportunity was scored by ROI and implementation effort, sequenced into phases, and allocated a named sponsor before the engagement ended.
Quick Wins (Wave 1)
0–6 months
$1.8M
5 opportunities · Named sponsors committed at Readout
AP Invoice Automation — $620K
Supplier Qualification redesign — $380K
Contract Lifecycle Management — $340K
PO 3-Way Match automation — $280K
Vendor Master Data remediation — $180K
Strategic Initiatives (Wave 2)
6–18 months
$2.1M
4 opportunities · Dependency-sequenced
Strategic Sourcing optimization — $780K
Commodity Risk management — $560K
Supplier Performance Scorecard — $420K
Procurement Analytics platform — $340K
Transformational Change (Wave 3)
18–36 months
$1.4M
3 opportunities · Post-Wave 1 dependencies resolved
ERP Module Optimization — $620K
Tail Spend Consolidation — $480K
Demand Planning Integration — $300K
All 12 Opportunities — ROI Priority Matrix™
Quick Win
AP Invoice Automation
$620K
Quick Win
Supplier Qualification
$380K
Quick Win
Contract Lifecycle
$340K
Quick Win
PO 3-Way Match
$280K
Quick Win
Vendor Master Data
$180K
Strategic
Strategic Sourcing
$780K
Strategic
Commodity Risk
$560K
Strategic
Supplier Scorecard
$420K
Strategic
Procurement Analytics
$340K
Transformational
ERP Optimization
$620K
Transformational
Tail Spend
$480K
Transformational
Demand Planning
$300K
What Changed After
The engagement ended.
The work began.
The Executive Readout was not the finish line. Within two weeks of Session 4, the programme was running.
Programme office established within 2 weeks
5 Wave 1 opportunity owners named and briefed. Each received their section of the ValueFlow Roadmap™ with dependencies, dollar values, and a defined scope on day one.
AP Invoice Automation kicked off in Week 1
SAP AP module activation scoped directly against ValueMap™ L4 activities. The project brief was built from the engagement deliverables — not a separate discovery phase.
Supplier Qualification redesign commissioned
Legacy email-based supplier intake workflow replaced with a structured digital process. The Pain Point Register provided the requirements brief — verbatim, from the people running the process.
$2.4M ERP investment restructured
The Leadership-Practitioner Divergence report showed leadership had significantly overestimated technology enablement in vendor management. The planned ERP customization was paused and rescoped — avoiding remediation cost that would have materialized post-go-live.
ValueFlow Nexus™ Professional licence activated
Aldara signed a post-engagement Nexus™ Professional licence to maintain the ValueMap™, track Wave 1 KPI actuals, and run a quarterly re-survey at Month 6. The capability stayed live after the engagement ended.
Board presentation delivered same day as Session 4
The auto-generated Executive Readout from Nexus™ was presented to the Aldara board the afternoon of Session 4. No post-engagement report. No additional consulting time. The roadmap was board-ready when the session ended.
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