Rich Products streamlines SAP Ariba employee experience and change management with WalkMe

Rich Products Corporation, a family-owned food manufacturing company with 100 locations worldwide, set out to enhance procurement efficiency and consistency across its North American operations. As part of a broader digital transformation, the company deployed SAP Ariba to modernize its purchasing processes. With diverse teams ranging from plant managers to maintenance staff using the platform, Rich Products needed a scalable solution to help employees complete processes efficiently and accurately. The company aimed to reduce rework, limit the need for support team intervention, and ensure compliance with internal policies.

The company implemented WalkMe’s in-app guidance and real-time validations to proactively prevent errors and streamline workflows for all employee roles. Using WalkMe for Ariba, employees can complete tasks accurately and independently, complementing traditional training efforts. With this support in place, the team projects a 65% reduction in errors and delays, 70% increase in first-time submission accuracy, and 35% decrease in training time, creating lasting efficiencies across the organization.

Now, Rich Products is expanding its use of WalkMe across additional Ariba capabilities and preparing for global deployment, with a continued focus on self-service and operational efficiency to ensure its operations run smoothly.

Rich Products identified a clear opportunity to enhance procurement operations across its US and Canadian plants. With Ariba deployed in 29 plants, the company had established a solid foundation for procurement management. The team recognized that its diverse workforce – spanning various roles, such as plant managers, maintenance managers, maintenance buyers, and office staff, and tenure – required different levels of support when navigating Ariba.

“We have a gamut of associates in the system creating purchase orders,” said Sinead Scanlon, Change Management Lead at Rich Products. “Some people can submit their orders with no questions asked, while others are new to the technology and would benefit from support – especially since requirements can vary based on their role, location, or the type of item they’re purchasing.”

Previously, users often had to rely on support teams to complete or correct requisitions, resulting in approval delays and avoidable manual effort. “We wanted in-app guidance in Ariba to prevent this back-and-forth interaction that was time-consuming on both sides, and give people a way to opt-in to the level of guidance that was right for them,” said Collin Rampado, Associate Product Owner at Rich Products.

Purchase requisition workflows in particular involved multiple decision points, including vendor selection, commodity coding, and account matching, which made them prone to errors. When requisitions were submitted incorrectly and flagged by email notifications, those alerts were often missed or delayed, causing further disruption. These breakdowns created challenges for maintaining procurement accuracy and meeting production timelines.

Knowing the current problems facing North America locations, while also looking ahead to its global Ariba deployment, Rich Products knew it needed a scalable support model that would work across time zones, languages, and teams. A flexible, self-service approach became essential.

Rich Products took a data-driven approach to its digital adoption strategy, analyzing its procurement workflows to identify key friction points including incorrect vendor or commodity code selection, missed email alerts for denied requisitions, and general ledger mismatches based on shipping destinations. WalkMe analytics played a key role in uncovering these trends, helping the team prioritize where to build support. With those insights, the team built targeted WalkMe guidance that proactively supports users in the flow of work and reduces the need for manual intervention.

To ensure requisitions are completed accurately the first time, Rich Products implemented in-system guidance that helps associates select the correct vendor, assign appropriate commodity codes, and align entries with correct accounting requirements the first time. WalkMe provides just-in-time support as associates complete these steps, helping them avoid common mistakes and keep workflows moving.

“WalkMe acts like human intervention, in real time,” Scanlon said. “It helps eliminate lag time by answering questions as they come up, so requisitions are submitted correctly and routed to the right approver without delay.”

Real-time validations now flag incorrect entries before submission, eliminating delays caused by missed email alerts and rejected requisitions. Rich Products has configured tailored validation rules within WalkMe to reflect its specific procurement policies, such as restricting general ledger account combinations based on shipping destinations or flagging mismatched commodity codes.

In many of the scenarios where requisitions were previously denied, the team has now built validation steps and guidance directly into the workflow. “It automatically flags incorrect entries and walks employees through the fix,” said Collin, “so they can correct the issue on the spot without needing help from our support team.” These proactive triggers catch errors at the source, ensure compliance, and reduce rework – helping associates complete requisitions accurately the first time.

“WalkMe provides a scaffolding of support that adapts to each associate’s needs,” Scanlon said. “It meets them where they are.”

Rich Products also uses analytics to understand how associates interact with the guidance and where additional support may be needed. These insights help the team continuously refine the experience to better meet user needs.

Change management at Rich Products has become faster, more targeted, and easier to scale.
“For process updates and system enhancements, we can quickly build or update our WalkMe solutions and make them available to all users across time zones and locations,” said Scanlon. “This ensures associates see the latest guidance and process updates the next time they’re in the system, which significantly enhances our change management efforts.”

By integrating WalkMe into Ariba, Rich Products has created a scalable, responsive model that equips employees to succeed while also freeing up support teams to focus on high-impact work.

Rich Products’ digital adoption strategy transformed procurement operations into a more efficient, compliant, and user-centric approach. Support tickets have dropped, workflows are completed more accurately, and employees are more confident navigating Ariba on their own. “Seeing how many associates are actively engaging with our guidance to complete day-to-day tasks proves that WalkMe is working,” said Scanlon. “It’s a clear return on investment and validation that our strategy is paying off.”

Validation solutions have improved data accuracy and accelerated process completion. “When we launched WalkMe, I was monitoring the workflows,” said Rampado. “Before I could even step in to deny a request, the associate had already caught the issue themselves, made corrections and resubmitted successfully.” Rich Products forecasts this shift to reduce errors and delays by 65% and increase first-time submission accuracy by 70%—a clear sign that users are learning and correcting issues in real time.

This self-service model has eliminated costly back and forth, preserved manufacturing schedules, and helped maintain strong supplier relationships. “Every WalkMe solution we deploy helps us move forward by preventing delays and ensuring our procurement processes stay on track. That consistency is what helps us keep our supplier relationships in good standing,” Scanlon said.

WalkMe has also improved onboarding for new hires, enabling them to complete tasks from day one without one-on-one training. “New associates are onboarded more quickly and effectively, and in compliance with our processes and procedures,” said Scanlon. As a result, training time is projected to drop by 35%, giving teams more time to focus on higher-impact activities.

This same approach has improved the way Rich Products communicates process changes and system updates across its plants. By delivering updates directly within the platform, the team ensures consistency while avoiding the need for lengthy training sessions or manual communications. “When WalkMe deploys our messaging to associates and buyers at all locations, across different time zones, that’s a time and cost savings for us,” Scanlon said. “We’ve seen a significant decrease in support tickets, which not only saves time for our associates, but for the support team as well, giving them time to focus on high-impact work.”

As Rich Products continues its global rollout of Ariba, digital adoption and employee experience remains at the heart of its strategy.

“Our digital adoption strategy is focused on creating a seamless, empowering experience for our associates,” said Scanlon. “We want every team member to feel confident and comfortable placing orders in Ariba, able to self-serve successfully while staying aligned with our policies and procedures.”