Working together

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 are switching 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.

1. Find out which ‘waves’ will affect you

Our system changeover will take place in two waves.

Wave one includes North America, South America, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka – except for our tea suppliers in those places. This wave also includes the suppliers that are working with one of our central entities based in the Netherlands; these entities include; ekaterra Global Operations B.V. and ekaterra Group IP Holdings B.V..

If you’re working with an ekaterra business based in one of these areas (and you are not a tea supplier), the way you invoice us has changed per the 3rd of April this year.

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 you are one of our tea suppliers anywhere), the way you invoice us is expected to change on the 3rd of July this year. We’ll confirm the go-live date two weeks before it’s due to happen.

2. Register for changeover updates

We’ll be sending out updates and running live Online Supplier Summits, to share how our new systems 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 2 in English:

Registration link to the Online Supplier Summit for wave 2 in Japanese:

Wednesday 7 June at 9:00am (link coming soon)

Registration link to the Online Supplier Summit for wave 2 in Polish

Thursday 8 June 11:00am (link coming soon)

All times are in Central European Summer Time.

3. Are you supplying goods and services to ekaterra in wave 1 countries?
Prepare to receive the first purchase order and register on the SAP Business Network.

From the 3rd of April onwards you can expect to receive the first purchase order. This new purchase order will contain a link to register on the SAP Business Network.

If you click on the link, you will go to the registration page of the SAP Business Network. On the registration page, you can check if your company already has an account on the SAP Business Network. If your company does not have an account yet, you can create a new account by inputting the required information, accept the terms and conditions and click ‘Register’. If you already have an (enterprise) account on the SAP Business Network, you can use that (enterprise) account to log in. More information can be found here .

Once you are registered, you can invoice us via the SAP Business Network (it’s easy: you can ‘flip’ the purchase order in the SAP Business Network to create an invoice automatically). Alternatively, you can email your invoice as a PDF to ap@lipton.com , or send a paper invoice to us. Make sure that you always mention the purchase order number and the correct bill-to address (as shown on the purchase order) on your invoice.

Raise your questions to the LIPTON Teas and Infusions Servicedesk , send an email to APhelpdesk@lipton.com , or call us .

4. Are you supplying goods and services to ekaterra in wave 2 countries?
Carry on as usual, until the changeover happens.

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 when to change over (see the waves in section 1).

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

Want to get a head start?

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:

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