Customer
Al Dahra
Industry
Agriculture
Key technologies
Go-live
2021
Country
Abu Dhabi
UAE
UAE
Al Dahra, a multinational leader in agribusiness, struggled to gain transparency of their supply chain network due to siloed operations. Excessive manual tasks resulted in errors and delays. With the implementation of SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) and SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration by Westernacher Consulting, Al Dahra achieved automation and visibility which smoothened their daily operations. The seamless cloud integration of major freight booking platforms developed by Westernacher made this very first SAP Logistics Business Network for Logistics implementation in the Middle East a tremendous success.
Embracing the digital wave.
Based in Abu Dhabi UAE, Al Dahra, a prominent multinational leader in agribusiness specializing in trading of animal feed and human food commodities, operates in more than 20 countries and over 45 markets. Like many large enterprises, the 5,000-strong company grappled to gain transparency of their supply chain network due to their siloed operations. Lack of harmonization and automation led to excessive manual tasks, delays and errors.
Agribusiness in the Middle East has seen a wave of digitization and adoption of smart solutions owing to the rapid population growth. Amid this digital wave, Al Dahra felt the need to streamline and automate logistics processes, digitalize means of communication, boost collaboration and enhance transportation visibility in a bid to improve operational efficiency, increase productivity and reduce costs.
Simplifying collaboration and communication.
As part of Al Dahra’s Supply Chain Digital Transformation program, the Middle East giant aimed to simplify their technology landscape with standard integrations. This facilitates collaboration among planners and carriers via a single portal and breaks down communication silos. One of the objectives was to obtain freight order visibility in transit for full truck loads (FTL) and less than truck loads (LTL) with their partner fleet. In addition, they sought to increase efficiency of transportation planners, improving estimated time of arrival (ETA) while reducing detention times and demurrage costs.
Easy execution across integrated logistics platform.
Westernacher Consulting is known for its expertise in digital supply chain execution and has a proven track record of successful transportation projects. It was a no-brainer for Al Dahra to bring Westernacher on board to support them in this digital transformation program and help attain their goals defined at the inception of the project.
With the implementation of SAP TM and SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration by Westernacher, Al Dahra moved from local planning to an integrated logistics platform. Main features in use include land booking information sent to carriers with direct integration between TM and SAP Business Network for Logistics; booking confirmation/rejection by carriers; events reported by carriers visible in real time in TM; freight settlement enabled; invoice sent from carriers to TM; dispute handling via SAP Business Network for Logistics and TM; notifications to shipper about order confirmations and dispute creation.
10
Decrease in transaction costs
0
Workday per week saved due to
automatic freight order handling
50
Increased efficiency by
electronic invoice verification
After the implementation of SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration, involved parties no longer need to use Excel sheets or emails for communication and status updates on pickup orders, booking confirmation, work order update and booking data, etc. Transportation planning is not performed in silo operations anymore.
Automation and visibility streamline operations.
Process automation for freight booking and better insight into transportation have made the daily operations at Al Dahra easier. All this is enabled by using SAP TM, SAP Business Network for Logistics and connecting top carriers via cloud integration. In the end, smooth SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration implementation was carried out in eight countries, connecting 13 land carriers across various regions via web portal. Tighter partnerships were fostered by integration of various platforms to SAP TM (Descartes for Ocean, Agility 3rd party system via SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration through B2B interface).
To sum up, the project has brought the following value-adding advantages:
- Accelerated transportation planning and optimization
- Easy onboarding of carriers to SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration via invites and master data setup based on SAP TM & shipper SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration
- Business intervention is simplified with early warnings, log monitoring and dispute handling via SAP Business Network for Logistics Shipper Portal which changed exception handling from reactive to proactive
- Enabling freight order confirmation, event reporting, invoice creation and disputes by carriers directly via SAP Business Network for Logistics Carrier Portal boosts planners’ efficiency
- Improved availability of capacity with better freight visibility
- More precise ETA reduces detention times and demurrage costs
- Better customer service by providing real-time shipments insights and accurate reporting
- Cloud solution provides easy access and improves data security and performance
With seamless cloud integration of major freight booking platforms developed by our partner Westernacher, the very first SAP Business Network for Logistics implementation in the Middle East was extremely successful. Al Dahra achieved automation and visibility which made life much easier and business more efficient.
Giby George, Director, Global IT – Al Dahra Holding
For Al Dahra, the transformation journey towards becoming an intelligent enterprise does not end at this point. To achieve more visibility in sourcing and procurement, further seamless integration with business partners is currently under evaluation, namely the connection between SAP TM and SAP Ariba for the suppliers of transportation services.
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