CF Industries exemplifies the complexity of the order-to-cash cycle facing many manufacturers today. The $2.8 billion company markets fertilizer products made at plants in Florida, Louisiana, and Alberta, Canada. The company moves its product in bulk by pipeline, vessels, barges, railcars, and trucks throughout North America. CF Industries offers four different pricing options to its customers, who buy fertilizer from CF's plants, warehouses, and terminals. With such a diverse order landscape, transaction errors are not uncommon.
At least they were not before the company deployed a new order management and fulfillment system in 2004. At the time, CF Industries used three different homegrown systems for order management, pricing, and billing, complicating its processes even further.
"The old system would sometimes bill out the wrong price," says Christine Dingman, director of sales support at CF Industries.
CF Industries isn't the only manufacturer trying to cope with the consequences of increasingly complex order-to-cash processes. Traditionally, the order-to-cash process looked like this: A customer sent a manufacturer an order, and then the manufacturer made the product, shipped it to the customer, and sent an invoice.