Axian enhancing integrity with digital procurement solution

As a company that operates in six countries across mainland Africa and specialises in five separate industries - real estate, telecoms, finance, energy, and FinTech - Axian needs to be at the top of its game. Deemed to have “high growth potential”, the company is endeavouring to streamline its processes and improve the integrity of its business in order to stay above its competitors and retain its gleaming reputation, unwilling to let the quality of its practices dwindle despite the demand for its services growing. So as the company makes the decision to integrate Oxalys’ digital procurement solutions into its systems, it’s hopeful that the technology will keep it ahead of the industry. 

Digital procurement to streamline company operations

Axian relies heavily on its IT systems to manage its operations across Africa. After investing over US$1.1bn in the last 10 years to stimulate its progress, it’s now looking to consolidate its overall procurement process to maintain the same business success. Despite the investment, the company’s procurement processes remain limited, unable to increase traceability levels, optimise validation, or supply its customers with a more up-to-date communication platform. 

“We quickly chose to centralise the management of our procurement processes in Oxalys while developing an interface with all of our ERP systems to have greater visibility,” says Philippe Prodhomme, Group CFO of Axian Group. “We are experiencing strong growth in our business in Africa in strategic sectors such as telecoms or energy, which require us to take up strategic challenges in terms of supply chain, notably by guaranteeing the responsiveness and the integrity of the procurement chain, from sourcing to payment of supplier invoices. 

“The idea with the Oxalys digital procurement solution is also to ensure end-to-end supplier self-care and to have a common supplier database for all the subsidiaries to have a common reference system.”

Solutions implemented into Axian’s systems to enhance process performance

The Oxalys Procurement solution gives companies the ability to digitalise their spend and procurement processes, standing out due to its maturity and reputation. 

“We saw that we could have much broader functional coverage than we had imagined to manage high-volume procurement and to have a real means of communicating with suppliers,” continues Prodhomme. “We decided to take a leap forward in innovation and equip ourselves with a complete suite that meets our challenges and more in the future.”

Currently, six companies and around 100 users are using the solution via a shared services centre. Axian worked hand-in-hand with Oxalys to develop the right software, personalised to the company’s individual needs. 

“The project went well, and the collaboration with Oxalys was judged ‘excellent’ by the teams,” Prodhomme says. And while Axian reportedly faced some obstacles - as can be expected with any form of innovation - both parties are happy with the result of the programme’s integration and optimistic about Axian’s now digitalised procurement future.