Customer Success Story - Voestalpine
360° view of suppliers across 37 ERP systems
Key results
from 33% to 4% duplicates
cleansed with CDQ
for CDQ to onboard a new supplier
The challenge
voestalpine is a global steel and technology group based in Linz, Austria, with around 500 group companies and locations in 50 countries on five continents. Of these, 254 companies purchase from suppliers and work with 59 SAP and non-SAP ERP systems, each using its own supplier ID logic.
Procurement, finance and sales viewed the same business partner in different ways, which made a common definition of supplier master data the biggest challenge. In a first analysis, CDQ counted around 100,000 supplier records worldwide, roughly 2,000 people with the right to change them and almost 33% duplicates.
With a large procurement program, legal and sustainability requirements and ongoing SAP S/4HANA projects, clean supplier data became essential.
The experience
After evaluating more than 35 MDM solutions, voestalpine selected SAP MDG in the private cloud, with CDQ supporting the concept, the governance structure, the role descriptions and the rule book. Central master data management now works hand in hand with local data administration, steered by a data governance council with members from every division.
Since a one-time migration of 59 systems was not realistic, voestalpine moves its systems in waves. Six weeks before each go-live, CDQ analyzes the business partner data of the systems in that wave, removes duplicates and enriches the records. New suppliers start with a CDQ request in SAP MDG: name, country and language are enough for First Time Right enrichment. A data steward then approves each record.
The results
Since the first go-live in 2025, almost 70,000 suppliers have moved to SAP MDG and 73% of the remaining 37 ERP systems are connected. The outstanding systems follow by 2027. Older ECC systems receive data via IDoc, while S/4HANA systems use proxy interfaces.
Overall, duplicates went down from almost 33% to around 4%. Regular extracts from SAP MDG keep them in check, since spelling variants can never be fully ruled out. Every Golden Record holds the IDs of all connected local systems, so an approved change such as a new address reaches every system automatically. Next, voestalpine plans CDQ Zero Maintenance with the Data Mirror to detect insolvencies, inactive suppliers and fraud risks.
About voestalpine
voestalpine is a globally leading steel and technology group headquartered in Linz, Austria. It operates around 500 group companies and locations in 50 countries on five continents, organized in four divisions.
