How Breuninger Connected 600+ Suppliers
About
Breuninger is one of Europe's leading premium fashion retailers, bringing together 1,500+ international brands across 13 stores and its online platform across DACH. Founded in 1881, Breuninger generates €1.3B in revenue and employs 6,500+ people.
As part of its digitalization and AI strategy, Breuninger is building a fully digital supplier network to automate manual processes and scale operations efficiently.
Challenge
As Breuninger continued to grow, so did its supplier network and the complexity behind it. Hundreds of fashion brands had very different technical capabilities: while larger suppliers were already connected via EDI, many others had little or no digital integration.
This meant that growth also created more manual work. Supplier processes were spread across different teams and workflows, while around 2,000 shipping notices (DESADVs) arrived as PDFs every month and had to be manually entered before deliveries could be validated.
To keep scaling efficiently, Breuninger needed every supplier to operate digitally, regardless of their technical setup.
Solution
Breuninger chose Procuros' AI-native supply chain connectivity to digitize its supplier network end-to-end, regardless of each supplier's technical capabilities.
For suppliers without EDI capabilities, Procuros automatically turns PDFs into structured, validated data. At the same time, Breuninger is replacing its legacy EDI setup by migrating existing EDI suppliers onto Procuros, bringing EDI and non-EDI suppliers together on one modern, AI-native infrastructure.
Hundreds of shipping notices are now processed automatically every month, eliminating manual data entry and making delivery data available in Breuninger's ERP before goods arrive at the warehouse. This reduces processing time and allows warehouse teams to prepare for incoming deliveries earlier.
Ultimately, Breuninger's supplier operations have been centralized into one dedicated team, enabling the company to manage more suppliers and volume with significantly less manual work.
Our goal is to digitize every supplier relationship, regardless of how our partners are technically set up. With Procuros, we can scale our supplier network without scaling the manual work behind it.
Results
Today, 600+ suppliers are connected and 100% of shipping notices are processed digitally.
Automation has reduced the manual effort required for document processing by more than 95% and shortened inbound processing times by 40%, allowing Breuninger to handle a growing supplier network with significantly less operational effort.
Looking ahead, Breuninger and Procuros are taking the next step: from digitizing supplier processes to making them autonomous. AI agents will increasingly validate data, identify exceptions, and coordinate resolutions automatically, building toward a supplier network that can operate end-to-end with minimal human intervention.
For us, digitization is only the first step. The real opportunity is creating an infrastructure where supplier processes can increasingly run autonomously. Procuros gives us the foundation to move from manual workflows to digital processes and, ultimately, AI-powered automation.
