Air Liquide's Challenge: A Global Vendor Master Amidst Dozens of ERPs

Air Liquide is a global powerhouse in gases and technology, with approximately 62,000 employees across 75 countries and an annual revenue of nearly €28 billion. 

Behind the scenes in 2024, Air Liquide’s procurement teams were navigating a massive operational hurdle. Following the acquisition of 6 companies over the last 10 years, Air Liquide found itself operating in a highly decentralized environment. The primary friction point? A fragmented tech stack featuring nearly 40 different ERP systems across multiple geographies. This lack of integration left critical supplier data scattered, duplicated, and increasingly inconsistent. 

Before implementing Graphite, Air Liquide’s onboarding process was less than favorable. Their supplier onboarding processes were manual and email-heavy, often dragging on for months. This created onboarding bottlenecks to get suppliers up and running. 

The Procurement and IT teams struggled with data fragmentation. The same vendor would often appear in multiple systems with different bank accounts or tax IDs, creating data entropy. 

Lastly, Air Liquide faced significant security risks. Because the onboarding workflow was such a manual process, data entry left the door open for "fat-finger" errors that could unintentionally send payments to incorrect bank accounts and also opened the door to potential payment fraud.

The Solution: Graphite as the "Single Source of Truth"

In 2025, Air Liquide implemented Graphite to serve as its Supplier Information Management (SIM) platform. The goal was to centralize their systems and create a Golden Record for all supplier data. This was done by implementing the following steps. 

1. They needed a unified workflow that other divisions could follow and iterate upon. 

Graphite provided a single portal for supplier onboarding and qualification globally. The introduction of Graphite has helped Air Liquide reduce the number of ERPs, ensuring that data flows seamlessly from the "source of truth" to the transactional systems.

2. One Golden Record to Rule Them All

Graphite has provided global visibility to their suppliers by using a unique Supplier Key. Air Liquide now sees a global picture of its relationship with suppliers, including Mutualized Qualifications such as total spend and hierarchy. This visibility is now seen across different suppliers and their associated industries. Now if a supplier is qualified by one business unit (e.g., in Europe), other global teams can leverage that existing data instead of starting from scratch.

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The implementation of Graphite has led to additional measurable improvements in how Air Liquide operates:

• Reduced Onboarding Time: While traditional processes often exceeded 20 days, Air Liquide has seen onboarding times drop to 10 days, with continual improvement being seen as new divisions have gone live with Graphite.
• Enhanced Security: Graphite provides a robust solution for managing bank account information, effectively eliminating fraud through end-to-end security between the supplier and the ERP. Across the Graphite Network in 2025, Graphite identified over 5,000 potential fraud attempts, with zero attempts succeeding.
• User Adoption: The platform is currently used by over 1,200 people speaking over 10 different languages within procurement and operations globally, with high Net Promoter Scores (NPS) indicating strong user satisfaction.

Why Air Liquide Chose Graphite

For Air Liquide, Graphite did more than clean up their supplier onboarding time; it connected supplier information directly to spend data which is giving leadership better visibility into suppliers and associated data points. This visibility is critical for their ADVANCE strategic plan, which targets an increase in operational efficiency.

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Conclusion: A Scalable Future

By replacing nearly silos with one unified network, Air Liquide has turned a challenge into a strategic advantage. They are now onboarding suppliers faster, with better data and higher security—paving the way for the next era of procurement leadership.

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