Sika Gains Supply Chain Transparency and Cuts Inventory Costs 20% With Angles for SAP

• Managers get end-to-end operational visibility from purchasing through delivery.

• Supply chain teams can access millions of data records in seconds with self-service analytics.

• Executives get fast insights into KPIs for proactive decision-making.

Before using Angles for SAP from insightsoftware, Sika Group struggled with limited data transparency in supply chain management, depending heavily on IT to create reports showing KPIs. Reporting lacked the speed and insights leaders needed for proactive decision-making. Since Sika chose Angles for SAP, teams now use self-service analytics to gain insights much more quickly. No longer relying on SAP expertise, supply chain teams can access millions of data records in seconds. Based in Baar, Switzerland, Sika AG is a multinational company and a market leader for construction chemicals. The company operates with a decentralized business model, supporting businesses in different countries across multiple regions with a fully integrated supply chain that spans planning, execution, customer service, transportation management, and logistics. In a six-month global inventory optimization project powered by Angles, Sika greatly reduced its overall inventory value and improved operational efficiency. With end-to-end visibility from purchase orders through delivery, Sika is now focused on improving on-time-in-full delivery rates and enhancing customer service across all regions.

Before implementing Angles for SAP in 2020, Sika's supply chain management team faced a fundamental challenge that hindered their ability to respond quickly to business needs and market changes. "Before Angles, we depended very much on IT to create the reports and KPIs we needed," said Alexander Prager, Head of Regional Supply Chain, Americas. The dependence on IT resources created bottlenecks in accessing critical supply chain data, slowing down decision-making processes and limiting the team's ability to gain real-time insights into operations. The company needed transparency across different dimensions of supply chain management, but the existing reporting infrastructure couldn't deliver the speed or flexibility required. Traditional BI reporting tools presented their own limitations. Depending on how the report is set up, Prager noted, “you might wait for minutes, or you get some timeout error at the end." These delays were more than just inconveniences. They caused missed opportunities to identify problems early and take corrective action before issues escalated. For a global organization with decentralized operations across multiple countries, the lack of fast, reliable data access blocked consistent visibility into inventory levels and supply chain bottlenecks. The supply chain team knew they needed better transparency, so leaders could ensure optimal working capital management. But they also needed a solution that wouldn't require extensive IT involvement for every new report or analysis. The stakes were high. In the construction chemicals industry, maintaining the right balance of inventory is critical. Too much ties up valuable working capital, while too little risks service failures and disappointed customers. Without the ability to quickly analyze data across the entire value chain, Sika was operating with blind spots that could impact both financial performance and customer satisfaction.

Sika's journey with Angles for SAP began in 2020, when the need for data transparency became even more critical amid market uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sika started small with a proof of concept for Angles. “It was very fast and with amazing results," Prager said. The proof-of-concept approach allowed Sika to validate Angles for SAP’s capabilities quickly without significant upfront investment or lengthy evaluation cycles. [customer_testimonial] What immediately stood out during the evaluation was the combination of three critical capabilities that Angles for SAP offered. The first was self-service capability. "With Angles, we are self-sufficient in supply chain management. This is one of the huge advantages that I'm seeing still today," he noted. The supply chain team no longer waits on IT resources to create custom reports or modify existing ones. "The second point is it's fast. It's unbelievably fast. You press the button and—you have to see it, otherwise you won't believe it. Millions of data sets are visible within seconds. Not minutes, seconds," Prager said. The third compelling feature was usability. "You don't have to be an SAP expert or a process expert to create your own insights. It's easy and flexible," Prager said. When asked about alternatives in the market, Prager was direct: "So many people claim a lot. You deliver. I haven’t seen an alternative so far with similar flexibility, speed, and self-service.” A critical technical advantage was the pre-built data model. "The experts at insightsoftware created a clever data model. Across the whole value chain—from the purchase order to the production order to the delivery and sales order at the end—you can get end-to-end insights," Prager explained. This meant Sika could track an issue such as raw material shortages all the way through to impacted customer orders. Traditional approaches would take much longer.

Sika's experience demonstrated that implementing enterprise-grade analytics doesn't require lengthy, complex rollouts. From proof of concept to rollout, Prager said, "We were up and running within eight weeks, two months. So, very fast." The implementation did require some IT involvement for security validation and ensuring the private cloud setup met corporate standards, but it wasn't a massive project undertaking. "You need to think about what you want for your business, how to slice and dice the data. Where is your emphasis?" Prager said. For Sika, the focus shifted from technical configuration to business strategy. Leaders had to figure out which insights mattered most and how to structure analyses for maximum impact. Sika took a deliberate approach to user adoption. "We typically start small with a company,” Prager said. “We start with two to three users, and train them to be power users." Sika’s power users include supply chain planners, analysts, and managers who can then support broader rollout across the organization. Prager emphasized the importance of face-to-face training during rollout. "My recommendation is to go into a rollout with physical meetings eye to eye because you will learn also from the users. What are their use cases? What do they need to see? Then it's tailor made, and with that you will achieve the impact." User adoption was smooth. "Users love it because they know the alternatives are not better, and the results speak for themselves," Prager said. Because Sika had teams with the right mix of process knowledge and SAP familiarity, learning to use the solution was smooth.

The initial business case for Angles focused squarely on working capital management and inventory optimization. The results validated the investment quickly. "The business case when we originally introduced Angles was very much focused on capital cost, on inventory, managing inventory better, reducing unnecessary inventory, also identifying items where we need more or it's really the balance looking forward, not only backwards," Prager explained. Sika launched a global inventory reduction project using Angles to identify opportunities across all countries. Because Angles supplied all the global data quickly, Sika teams were able to collaborate across country borders to make substantial changes. "The impact was a double-digit reduction in inventory value over the six-month project," Prager said. The inventory cuts of more than 20% came from multiple areas—targeting obsolete stock, slow-moving inventory, and unnecessary procurement—while maintaining the ability to serve customers effectively. The speed advantage proved critical during the project. "The compelling advantage of Angles was again the speed. Yes, you can do it without Angles, but the effort will be just so much higher," Prager noted. While other solutions could theoretically deliver similar insights, the time and resource investment would have been too high. Beyond inventory management, Angles provided visibility into process inefficiencies that were hurting data quality and operational performance. "You would be surprised if you check your pollution in your system. Pollution means outdated orders, purchase orders, process orders, sales orders that should have been maybe closed years ago but aren't," Prager said. Cleaning up these outdated orders—system pollution—became the foundation for smoother processes and improved automation.

Having achieved major inventory optimization results, Sika is now expanding how it uses Angles to address its next business target: customer service excellence. "While we used to use Angles very much looking into the past, focusing very much on inventory management for management reporting, also drilling down into the details, we didn't tackle all the possibilities that Angles offers," Prager said. Sika leaders recognized untapped potential in the solution beyond their initial use cases. "The focus now is much more on the service level, really looking at bottlenecks in order processing, ensuring that our on-time-in-full deliveries will be as high as possible," Prager said. This shift reflects Sika's corporate commitment to being customer-centric across all regions. The new approach emphasizes proactive intervention. "Our mission now is to improve the service to our customers,” Prager said. “It starts with transparency to understand the past—what were the root causes, why did we fail sometimes to meet our customer requests, and finding mitigations. Then proactively for open orders, we need to identify early enough where an order is at risk and take action." This evolution from reactive to proactive management demonstrates how Angles serves as a platform for continuous improvement rather than a single pain-point solution.

When asked about advice for other organizations considering Angles, Prager’s response was clear. "I can recommend this solution to anyone, not only in the chemicals industry. I think it's not limited to any industry. So I highly recommend it. Go for it," he said. Prager praised the Angles project consultants’ support. “It's very hands on, very useful,” he said. During the implementation process, they were very flexible and responsive in acting on requests. “You will be amazed,” he said. When you start examining what your business needs and start the conversation, you can quickly find solutions. “The appetite comes from eating. So start the discussion,” Prager advised. “We have been really surprised how easy it was to get answers, to get insights." Reflecting on five years using the Angles for SAP solution, Prager noted that the solution that met Sika’s needs quickly continues to be improved. He summarized his experience simply: "You're hearing a happy customer, a convinced customer. It's a journey, and I’m happy to be on this journey." Ready to gain faster insights into your supply chain data and improve operational efficiency? Learn more about Angles for SAP at insightsoftware.com.