You’ll soon need to invoice us differently

When CVC Capital Partners bought Unilever’s tea business in 2022 – creating ekaterra – we continued to use Unilever’s purchasing and invoicing systems.

This year, that’s changing. We’re about to switch to a separate platform (SAP Business Network) and a new Shared Service Centre for you to contact in case of purchasing and invoicing questions.

If you’re a supplier to one of our businesses, or interested in working with us, here are the steps you should take.

Our system changeover will take place in two waves.

Wave one includes North America, South America, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – except for our tea suppliers in those places.

If you’re working with an ekaterra business based in one of these areas (and that business is not a tea supplier), the way you invoice us is expected to change between April and June this year. We’ll let you know two weeks before go-live about the exact go-live date.

Wave two includes all other ekaterra companies throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia – and applies to all our tea suppliers as well.

If you’re working with an ekaterra business based in one of those areas (or one of our tea suppliers anywhere), the way you invoice us is expected to change between July and September this year. Again, we’ll let you know the exact go-live date two weeks before it’s due to happen.

We’ll be sending out updates and running live Online Supplier Summits, to share how our new systems will work. You should register for an Online Supplier Summit today, or watch the on-demand video .

Registration links to the Online Supplier Summit for wave 1:

• Tuesday 7 March at 2.30pm India Standard Time

• Tuesday 7 March at 10am Eastern Standard Time

• Wednesday 8 March at 3.30pm India Standard Time

• Wednesday 8 March at 10am Eastern Standard Time

That’s right. Once you’ve joined an Online Supplier Summit, or watched the on-demand video, just keep using the Unilever system as usual, until we contact you with more instructions on how to change over (see the waves in section 1).

Here are links to Unilever’s website with current details about:

Once the system changeover has happened, the next purchase order (PO) you receive will contain a link to our new purchasing and invoicing system (it’s run on the SAP Business Network).

You’ll find full instructions there on how to invoice us. (It’s easy: you can either ‘flip’ the PO in the SAP Business Network to create an invoice automatically, or email your invoice as a PDF to ap@lipton.com )

After the changeover, you’ll also need to agree to our new terms and conditions.

Keen to see how the new systems work? As well as joining one of the Online Supplier Summits or watching the on-demand video, you can check out the following guides and tutorials:

• How to register (guide)

• How to register (video)

• How to work with the SAP Business Network (guide)

• How to work with the SAP Business Network standard account (video)

• How to work with the SAP Business Network enterprise account (video)

• How to reset your password (video)

• How to contact ekaterra supplier support (link coming soon)

• How to contact SAP support (guide)

• How to contact SAP support (video)

• How to log into the SAP Business Network

Something you’re still not sure about? Head over to these Frequently Asked Supplier Questions