Transforming global procurement: Innovating digital solutions and partnership

A leading global corporation faced mounting challenges within its procurement operations. Despite having a mature procurement structure, key pain points remained: fragmented data across different systems and siloed operations between various regions and business units. Procurement teams were tied up managing a large volume of tail spend, limiting their ability to focus on strategic initiatives.

At the same time, there was a growing expectation from leadership to modernise operations through automation and digital innovation. However, the company recognised that it was not ready for a classic full outsourcing model. What they needed was a flexible, technology-enabled solution that could integrate seamlessly into their existing systems, boost efficiency, and deliver tangible results.

Goals and challenges

• Complex spend management: The client managed a global and diverse spend portfolio that required both efficiency and flexibility in its procurement processes. To meet these needs, the organisation wanted to avoid a traditional, rigid outsourcing approach, instead opting for a more adaptable and scalable solution.
• Digital acceleration: The client recognised the opportunity presented by integrating automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital tools into procurement processes to enhance speed, accuracy, and user experiences. They needed support to make this a reality.
• Customer service excellence: Another core requirement was maintaining high internal stakeholder satisfaction through excellent service delivery and measurable outcomes.

Approach

The client kicked off its partnership with Efficio several years ago to launch a highly customised and scalable technology-driven service model. Instead of deploying a traditional outsourcing path, the client-Efficio team took a "one team" approach: consultants were integrated directly into the client’s Global Procurement team, aligning fully with their internal processes and systems. A flexible, outcome-based model was implemented to ensure Efficio’s work was fully aligned with the client’s goals.  

Key activities included:

• Efficio’s Connected Platform and AI-powered tools were at the heart of this transformation. These technologies streamlined supplier identification, accelerated contract management, and automated high-volume transactional activities. The client-Efficio team also co-developed additional digital efficiencies, ensuring that the solutions evolved in line with the client’s broader transformation agenda and could manage a complex global procurement portfolio.
• The team optimised sourcing and contracting processes by reducing administrative burdens, improving handling strategies, and renegotiating contracts to longer, multi-year terms to free up capacity.

These technology and process optimisations brought data and teams together globally, significantly boosting Procurement’s ability to serve internal clients.

Throughout the engagement, the team maintained a strong emphasis on change management best practices and strong stakeholder engagement, recognising that success required more than just better processes, but also buy-in across the business.

The below are some examples of the steps taken.