Challenging the Status Quo in Procurement Technology: A Smarter Way to Achieve Better Value

In the race to dominate the procurement technology market and attract top brands, many global tech giants have deprioritized their smaller customers. While their “subject to change” solution roadmaps may seem mature, they often lack the flexibility and commitment needed to support the real procurement transformation needs of mid-sized businesses.

So how can we change this and get better value for money?

Today’s SaaS (cloud solutions) environment proves that money alone cannot buy everything. Despite paying an annual subscription of approximately £380,000 to a leading procurement solution provider — plus investing heavily in hiring a top system integrator (SI) — Mr. Gavin, the CPO of a mid-sized company, found himself unable to achieve the outcomes he needed.

Although he repeatedly stressed the importance of enabling new procurement scenarios as his industry and integrating smoothly with Accounts Payable, product limitations blocked the IT team. Ultimately, few critical business processes had to be excluded, resulting in a sub-optimal digital transformation.

Mr. Gavin’s vision was simple: a best-practice-based solution that could be deployed quickly, without needing deep technical expertise. This would allow him to pivot post-implementation to focus on broader CFO mandates like cost optimization, ESG compliance, DEI initiatives, supplier risk management, and regulatory adherence.

The rationale is clear: a best-practice solution should theoretically enable faster deployment with minimal costs and with AI presence this should be much faster. Yet, in reality, high-cost implementation, cloud subscription costs and change management often require Capex approval — and these projects frequently exceed initial budgets.

Over the years, we’ve worked with numerous clients on Source-to-Pay (S2P) transformations. Consistently, clients ask for:

1. A cloud solution built on industry best practices
2. Rapid, low-complexity deployment

We’re here to challenge this model — and help you convert Capex into manageable Opex.

Consider another case: A manufacturing company was paying £335,000 annually for a top-tier procurement cloud solution subscription and they invested another £370,000 in implementation. However, the solution only supported indirect procurement scenarios after first phase of implementation.

To address their direct procurement needs for real time supplier collaboration on core processes, the tech provider proposed an additional £360,000 per year in subscription fees — bringing the total to over £700,000 annually — along with additional £265,000 in SI fees for the rollout of additional module for direct procurement, needing Capex approvals from top management.

When the client engaged with us, we built a business case that stunned management:

• We reduced their annual subscription costs by ~57% for one-to-one feature mapping
• We absorbed the platform migration and deployment costs
• We delivered a unified procurement solution covering both direct and indirect needs
• We completed the deployment within just four months — keeping the CFO and CPO aligned with their business priorities

The lesson? Choose a procurement tech provider that is committed to listening and delivering

We can help you save money, deploy smarter, and shift your procurement tech spend from Capex to Opex — freeing you to focus on business priorities, not technical hurdles.

Know more on this topic: https://valueweaver.com/procurement-technology/