LuLu Group International is a highly diversified business operating around the world. Spearheaded by its retail division, the group has interests in imports and exports, trading, shipping, IT, travel and tourism, and education.

LuLu Group drives sales with 50% faster goods-receiving processes

Retail stores:

260+
Countries:

25
Annual revenues:

$8bn

Summary

Challenges

Enhance the customer experience by cutting the time taken to stock goods on store shelves.
Accelerate the processing of more than nine million paper invoices a year.

Solution

Streamlined AP processes with automation.
Replaced paper invoices with digital workflows.
Deployed rapidly across the global business.

Results

Achieved 70% STP rate for invoices
Accelerated goods receiving by 50%
Strengthened supplier relationships

Challenges

Reduce cost and complexity of processing millions of supplier deliveries a year
Maximize sales opportunities by receiving and re-stocking products faster
Deliver consistent, high-quality retail experiences to global customers

A highly diversified conglomerate, LuLu Group International operates a wide range of businesses, including hypermarkets, shopping malls, real estate companies, and more. Operating in 25 countries around the world, the group is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and generates annual revenues of $8 billion.

Retail is one of the cornerstones of LuLu Group’s business. With over 1.1 million square meters of floorspace across more than 260 stores globally, the group has a strong presence throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and beyond.

Anish Mohamed, CIO of LuLu Group International, said, “Our retail business is expanding rapidly, with double-digit year-on-year growth. Based on the success of our flagship stores in Abu Dhabi, we’ve since expanded our reach across the GCC and as far away as Indonesia and Malaysia.”

LuLu Group receives approximately 14 million stock-keeping units from its global suppliers. In the past, in-store teams handled the goods-receiving process manually, checking paper invoices for each order against their own records.

“Keeping our shelves stocked used to depend on thousands of pieces of paper flowing back and forth across the organization,” confirmed Mohamed. “One of the big challenges with this approach was that it was very time-consuming and labor-intensive. As a result, there was often a significant lead time between goods arriving at our stores and them being stocked on the shelf and ready for purchase.”

To ensure it could deliver a consistent and high-quality customer experience across its fast-growing retail business, LuLu Group looked for a way to enhance the efficiency of its accounts payable (AP) process. The aim was to empower in-store teams to validate and accept supplier deliveries faster—helping them to maintain optimal stock levels.

Without a doubt, Vendor Invoice Management is one of the most critical systems we run at LuLu Group.

Anish Mohamed
CIO, LuLu Group International

Solution

LuLu Group worked with OpenText™ Professional Services to replace manual, paper-based processes with streamlined and highly automated workflows powered by OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Archive for SAP Solutions

Optimize and control costs with efficient SAP data archiving
OpenText™ Capture

Harness AI to accelerate business with intelligent capture software
OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions

Streamline SAP financial processes with vendor invoice management

Solution deployed

OpenText™ Professional Services

Get a trusted partner to guide your information management path

Streamlining AP with automation

By combining accurate data capture capabilities from OpenText Capture with intelligent business logic in OpenText Vendor Invoice Management, LuLu Group can optimize and automate invoice processing from end to end.

“Our business is built on SAP, so it was essential to find a solution that was fully compatible with our SAP business systems,” commented Mohamed. “OpenText and SAP have co-developed their solutions for decades, which was one of the main reasons we selected OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions.”

Sudeendra Pulivendala, technical services manager – SAP at LuLu Group International, added, “As well as having an excellent reputation in the information management space, we were very impressed with the speed and accuracy of the OpenText data capture solution. When we started evaluating OpenText Capture, we quickly realized it would help us revolutionize our approach to AP.”

Building new digital workflows

Working with an expert team from OpenText Professional Services, LuLu Group shaped a new digital workflow for AP, powered by OpenText Vendor Invoice Management and OpenText Capture.

Suppliers now share their invoices prior to delivery, enabling LuLu Group to extract the necessary data using OpenText Capture. When suppliers deliver goods to a store, staff use handheld devices to scan the invoice number. After OpenText Vendor Invoice Management matches the invoice and purchase order numbers, staff receive a prompt to accept or reject the order on their handheld device. To help ensure regulatory compliance, LuLu Group stores paper invoices at a secure off-site location and uses OpenText Archive for SAP Solutions to retain a copy of the invoice data.

“Working with OpenText Professional Services was a great experience,” said Pulivendala. “Starting in the Abu Dhabi region, we conducted on-site visits to our stores to understand the practical challenges our teams there were facing. Based on those insights, we worked with OpenText to refine our OpenText Vendor Invoice Management workflows. This allowed us to ensure that the solution met the real-world needs of the business.”

Driving a rapid deployment

Within just six months, LuLu Group was ready to go live with the new AP automation solution. OpenText Professional Services played a key role in the deployment, including coordinating the change management process with LuLu Group’s hundreds of global suppliers.

“During the solution evaluation phase, we were very clear that we wanted an expert implementation partner, and OpenText Professional Services fit the bill perfectly,” said Pulivendala. “The OpenText team also have a deep understanding of how the retail business works—and that domain knowledge contributed to our rapid rollout of the solution.”

Two person checking stock list on laptop

We’re now achieving an STP rate of 70% with our OpenText solutions, which enables us to process millions of invoices a year with minimal human input.

Sudeendra Pulivendala
Technical Services Manager – SAP, LuLu Group International

Results

Today, LuLu Group uses the OpenText solution to streamline the processing of more than nine million invoices a year. With a straight-through processing (STP) rate of 70% for supplier invoices, the company helps its stores get stock on their shelves faster.

Achieving 70% STP rate for invoices

LuLu Group has now been using the OpenText solutions to support its AP process for more than five years—facilitating the company’s ongoing business growth. Today, the company processes more than nine million supplier invoices a year, leveraging automation from OpenText to reduce the administrative burden on its back-office teams.

Mohamed confirmed, “When staff scan an invoice, they immediately get a red or a green signal on their device advising them whether or not to accept the delivery—reducing the risk of delays in the receiving area. Without a doubt, OpenText Vendor Invoice Management is one of the most critical systems we run at LuLu Group.”

Pulivendala commented, “From the outset, we were very impressed with the accuracy of OpenText Capture. The solution enables us to extract invoice headers with around 95% accuracy and line items with over 60% accuracy. We’re now achieving an STP rate of 70% with our OpenText solutions, which enables us to process millions of invoices a year with minimal human input.”

Accelerating goods receiving by 50%

With OpenText solutions powering its AP process, LuLu Group can stock its shelves and warehouse faster than ever, helping to ensure high-quality experiences for customers online and in-store.

“Before we worked with OpenText, the big challenge was that our in-store teams lacked visibility into what deliveries were coming to their location each day, which led to goods piling up in the receiving areas of our stores,” explained Mohamed. “Now, that’s all changed. Thanks to our new digital AP process, we’ve cut the average time from receiving goods to making them available for purchase by 50%—enabling us to delight our customers and maximize every sales opportunity.”

Strengthening supplier relationships

Equipped with a smooth and scalable AP process, LuLu Group can pursue its growth goals while strengthening its relationships with global suppliers.

“The OpenText solutions aren’t just helping us to shape better customer experiences—they’re providing value for our suppliers, too,” said Mohamed. “The risk of rejected deliveries has dropped to practically nil, which helps our suppliers avoid costs and boost efficiency.”

LuLu Group has now digitized practically every aspect of its downstream AP process, but the company has no plans to stop there. Looking to the future, the company will work with OpenText to expand and enhance its SAP archiving capabilities—helping it to address new and more stringent regulatory requirements. Mohamed concluded, “We see OpenText as a key partner, and look forward to building on what we have already achieved together.”

Blog

How AP automation is helping LuLu Group International deliver seamless shopping experiences

Anish Mohamed, CIO of LuLu Group International, explains how OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions enables the company to receive and re-stock products 50% faster.

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