Supporting materials procurement business process reengineering end-to-end, from implementation through adoption, and establishing a digital platform that simultaneously achieves operational efficiency, standardization, and enhanced governance.

INPEX's materials procurement operations were large and complex, reflecting its operations in approximately 20 countries and the scale of its supplier base and procurement value. Energy plants require tens of millions of parts and components, with many procurement projects. Many processes had also relied on manual work and individual practices, including exchanging slips output from the enterprise resource planning system by email.
The key challenge was to improve efficiency while also achieving company-wide standardization and stronger governance. As the business became more diverse and faster-moving, INPEX also needed a procurement framework that would remain effective into the future.
Rather than simply renewing the system, INPEX needed to review procurement operations through business process reengineering, organize complex and inconsistent processes, define a common company-wide To-Be procurement process, and embed it into the execution platform. Advancing business design and implementation in an integrated manner was the greatest hurdle in driving the project.

A key success factor was promptly translating the "blueprint for procurement business reform" developed through business process reengineering into the execution platform. Based on an analysis of procurement issues and the defined To-Be state, INPEX selected Coupa for its usability, alignment with INPEX's materials procurement philosophy and Coupa product specifications, and future extensibility, including the use of AI.

By launching Coupa ahead of the enterprise resource planning system renewal, INPEX was able to implement new business processes and systems while momentum from business process reengineering remained high, helping establish the reform as an ongoing operation rather than a one-time initiative.
This early introduction enabled faster standardization and digitalization of the procurement process, strengthened company-wide governance, reduced buyer workload, enhanced supplier collaboration through Coupa as a common platform, improved the accuracy and granularity of spend data, and supported more advanced data-driven procurement decisions.

The project also maximized Coupa's standard functions to limit custom development, reduce future operation and improvement costs, and establish a platform for centrally managing and analyzing processes and data from purchase requests through invoicing. Phased migration before the enterprise resource planning system go-live allowed several hundred users to become familiar with the new operations and systems in advance, reducing the burden and confusion of introducing multiple systems, surfacing operational issues before go-live, and lowering the risks associated with a typical "big bang migration," including company-wide business disruption and difficulty in rollback.

In addition, ABeam Consulting supported not only system implementation but also operation and adoption, including user training, manuals, and support structures. This helped business process standardization and stronger governance take root in practice. Seamlessly advancing from concept and design to implementation and adoption was key to the project's success.

In INPEX's materials procurement reform, ABeam Consulting supported the initiative end-to-end, from procurement business process reengineering through adoption. In addition to designing and implementing mechanisms to visualize and control the procurement process, ABeam Consulting helped improve operational efficiency and standardize processes company-wide.
Leveraging deep expertise in both EPR systems and Coupa, ABeam Consulting enabled Coupa to go live ahead of the ERP system renewal, minimizing the time gap from business process reengineering activities and maintaining stakeholder momentum. This accelerated adoption of the new processes and contributed to 68% of users recognizing improved efficiency within four months of implementation.
ABeam Consulting also supported adoption through user training, manuals, and a support desk, enabling a smooth rollout to more than 600 users. By designing and implementing controls for approval workflows and authorization management, ABeam Consulting also helped strengthen company-wide governance.
In addition, by establishing a platform to visualize and utilize accumulated procurement data, ABeam Consulting enabled data-driven strategic procurement decisions.

Going forward, ABeam Consulting will continue to support the evolution of INPEX's procurement platform, including the development of mechanisms to use procurement data insights in strategy formulation and further usability improvements through AI.