Using AI to unlock category visibility and drive faster, smarter sourcing decisions

A major player in the European waste management sector sought to strengthen operational efficiency, but a critical visibility gap emerged during their transformation initiative: procurement lacked a consolidated view of supplier relationships, purchasing patterns, and spend values in key categories. The organization enlisted Efficio’s help to bolster their ability to identify savings opportunities and develop effective sourcing strategies. 

Challenge

Amidst an internal transformation, the newly formed procurement team encountered a fundamental obstacle to achieving their operational efficiency objectives. Despite having access to thousands of invoices, the company could not analyze total spend or identify patterns due to fragmented, unstructured data. This limited strategic sourcing decisions and made quantifying potential savings challenging. 

Efficio’s approach: Rapid AI deployment overlayed with human expertise 

Efficio rapidly deployed its proprietary AI-powered insight tool to process approximately 7,000 invoices. Within two days, the tool extracted line-level invoice data and structured all key data points, including supplier names, and normalizing total spend, unit prices, quantities, and purchasing frequency.  The result: previously fragmented files were transformed into a clean, analyzable dataset, delivering immediate and actionable insights with a 100% coverage and accuracy rate. 

Alongside the AI processing, Efficio’s category experts validated supplier grouping and taxonomy to ensure the spend view reflected how the business actually buys. Our consultants then structured the category and defined the opportunity logic, translating the dataset into clear sourcing priorities and negotiation levers. Working with the procurement team, we co-designed the sourcing plan so the insights could be acted on immediately and embedded as a repeatable way of working. 

Results: Spend clarity in 48 hours 

• Full spend visibility: Achieved in less than 48 hours for one of the client’s critical categories. 
• Strategic sourcing clarity: Identified key suppliers and areas of spend concentration. 
• Benchmarking opportunities: Enabled assessment of current prices against market rates. 
• Trend analysis: Unlocked understanding of price fluctuations and purchasing patterns over time. 
• Volume optimization: Highlighted opportunities to consolidate spend for better pricing and terms. 

The speed and quality of insight prompted the client to expand Efficio’s solution across all spend categories, equipping procurement to replicate rapid speed-to-insight, unlock further savings opportunities, and build a comprehensive sourcing strategy. 

The client-Efficio team established the core processes and capability, giving the company a repeatable blueprint to deliver value and strategic clarity across the organization on an ongoing basis.