A global sportswear company faced growing operational friction in its Order-to-Cash (O2C) cycle under SAP: reserved stock sitting idle, limited visibility on blocked materials, and rising orders from non-contract customers that could not be fulfilled. With a tight three-month mandate, OntraaK delivered a pragmatic, operational solution built on Celonis and SAP data integration that restored control over stock allocation, improved on-time delivery, and addressed a quantified €2.8M of potential value. The outcome combined a real-time control tower, automated prioritization logic, and a user-friendly intervention workflow enabling faster decisions, fewer lost sales, and measurable productivity gains.

Context & Objectives

The client operates complex, high-velocity O2C processes across multiple markets and product assortments. The business was experiencing three interrelated pain points:

• A vast amount of stock reserved but not yet attached to created orders

• Weak visibility into which materials were blocked and why

• An increasing number of orders from non-contract customers that the supply chain could not satisfy

These issues were amplified by fragmented tooling: several teams used different systems and localized solutions, producing disaggregated data and preventing rapid, coordinated action.

Given a three-month timeframe, the client set two clear objectives for the engagement:

• Deliver an operational tool to manage stock allocation against customer demand more effectively

• Improve the on-time delivery rate to protect order book integrity and sales profitability

OntraaK was tasked to convert disparate signals into actionable decisions, working across seven business areas: Supply Chain, Sales, Customer Service, Controlling, Product Line, Data, and Finance, each with distinct requirements and constraints.

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Main Actions

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OntraaK executed a focused, delivery-oriented programme composed of analysis, data enablement, value quantification and rapid operational tooling:

• Process and stakeholder analysis: A rapid diagnostic mapped the end-to-end O2C flow and the systems landscape, with detailed interviews across the seven business areas to capture rules, exceptions and operational bottlenecks specific to each perimeter.

• Data integration and validation on Celonis: SAP and auxiliary source systems were integrated into Celonis to create a single, trusted dataset. Data validation ensured the control tower reflected the live state of reserved stock, open orders and blocked materials.

• Value quantification: Using the consolidated view, OntraaK quantified a potential €2.8M of at-risk value attributable to delivery blocks, reserved stock, order rejections and returns.

• Development of an operational tool: OntraaK designed and implemented a three-step intervention workflow embedded in Celonis:
  1. Automatically identify orders unlikely to be served on time using prioritization rules and surface actionable cases
  2. Enable item-level zoom (including size-level variants) to pinpoint the exact SKU and allocation gap
  3. Present prioritized potential sources for reallocation and provide a direct call-to-action, a one-click email button within Celonis that sends a pre-populated message to the responsible line owner with all relevant details to reallocate stock

This design emphasized human-in-the-loop decisions: the system automates detection and prioritization while empowering domain owners to take fast, accountable action.

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Results

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Within the three-month window, OntraaK delivered a production-ready solution that materially improved the client’s O2C control and commercial resilience:

• Greater transparency: A control tower directly connected to SAP provided up-to-date visibility across perimeters, enabling rapid identification of improvement opportunities and evidence-based decision making.

• Improved efficiency and effectiveness: Centralized, ergonomically designed tooling reduced manual effort and accelerated case resolution. By securing the order book and improving stock allocation, the client maximized sales profitability and reduced avoidable order churn.

• Savings and value: The initiative surfaced €2.8M of potential value at risk and delivered operational levers to capture that value. Improved ergonomics and targeted workflows also reduced the need for additional headcount, increasing productivity.

• Additional analytics capabilities: The solution created a foundation for ongoing analytics and continuous improvement, enabling iterative tuning of allocation rules and escalation flows.

By combining process expertise, rapid data integration, and user-centric automation, OntraaK helped the client convert fragmented operations into a controlled, outcome-driven O2C capability preserving revenue, reducing waste, and creating a scalable model for future process modernization.

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