Executive Summary
Sempra Energy, an LSI, An Invenio Company customer, is one of North America’s largest developers of infrastructure facilities for the export of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). The company is currently developing five LNG facilities, which will help it to achieve its goal of supplying up to 45 Million Tonnes per year of clean natural gas to the world's largest markets.
To reach this expansion goal and keep up with its business demands, Sempra needed to overcome a number of deficiencies that were caused by its lack of a standardized Contract Management System (CMS). Thus, Sempra called upon LSI, An Invenio Company to guide it through an implementation of SAP Ariba Contract Management. Using a phased methodology, LSI, An Invenio Company integrated the new CMS with Sempra’s existing ERP solution. This unified solution would streamline Sempra’s Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), which would fix the company’s faults and help it to reach its goals.
The following project objectives reflect the vast influence of SAP Ariba:
- Provide a centralized location for users to create, track, view, edit and manage contacts.
- Provide access and data-flow for Enterprise Resource Program (“ERP”) data to and from the CMS System.
- Provide access and data-flow for DocuSign data to and from the CMS System.
- Increase user access to SharePoint files through the use of hyperlinks within the CMS System.
- Provide Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting (SMART) capabilities and dashboards.
- Ensure the integrity of data through the inclusion of audit and change tracking capabilities.
Business Transformation
LSI, An Invenio Company implemented the following software solutions: SAP Ariba Contract Management, Microsoft Dynamics, and Active Directory.
To integrate this combination, LSI, An Invenio Company used the following methods:
- Integration using APIs –LSI, An Invenio Company uniquely built integration across multiple proxy servers using custom-built APIs.
- Single Sign-on (SSO) Integration – SSO would increase the security and visibility for the sign-on process.
These solutions formed an efficient and maintainable CMS for Sempra. Previously, there was no defined contract creation process for Sempra employees to follow; instead, it took place through email, Excel, and other third-party apps. The new CMS solved this problem through its introduction of Contract Performance Management. It not only standardized the life of a contract from its request to its creation, but it also centralized the contract management workflow; now, Sempra employees can collaborate to request, execute and track their contracts more easily than ever.
A proper CMS further improves business processes through its support of the fierce demands of Public Sector contracting compliance. In other words, the set-up of SAP Ariba leads to a lower risk of contract non-compliance.
Results
To help employees meet and maintain their contract-related objectives, LSI, An Invenio Company delivered the following upgrades:
- Contract Term Tracking – A mechanism to track contracts that come up for expiration, renewal, negotiation, and closure.
- 360-degree view of contract workload and allocation – A detailed and centralized understanding of workload, allocation, and funds forecasting.
- A consistent view of the contract creation process – A complete cross-departmental display (according to provided authorizations) of the contract creation process, including Finance, Legal, and Risk.