Case Study
Vodafone: The future of procurement
-
Launched MVP in just two months
-
Launched an autonomous procurement platform in 11 countries
-
Scaled the platform to 1,000+ users from 11 countries in Europe and Africa
"We have launched a minimum viable product in only two months, starting from design thinking sessions. I see this achievement as quite extraordinary considering the size of the application and similar initiatives and projects in the past."
The Business Issue
Vodafone Procurement Company (VPC), a single global supply chain and procurement organization established more than 10 years ago by Vodafone, is headquartered in Luxembourg. The organization collaborates with business stakeholders to find them the best partners in over 400 different areas, covering €25b annual spend with more than 10,000 partners.
In a traditional procurement model, business stakeholders reach out to procurement teams and collaborate to find the best suppliers to fit their needs - a manual process that may be supported by several digital solutions to aid in sourcing and contracting. Not satisfied with this existing process, Vodafone defined an autonomous procurement vision to become faster and more efficient.
Vodafone had two options to achieve this vision. Continue to buy products off the shelf and then customize and connect them to meet its needs, or design and build its own product, typically a lengthy and costly option.
This is where Pega played a key role in Vodafone’s vision by giving the company a third option to rapidly build and deliver its platform.
The Solution
Vodafone initially focused on standardizing its business processes and implementing a global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform. This enabled it to set a strong foundation to streamline business processes and generate insights.
As a next step, the company focused on "making data speak" with real-time analytics to identify opportunities to generate value and mitigate risk.
Vodafone then moved forward with its plan to "make data act", assessing more than 20 solutions in the market and deciding to partner with Pega to build an Autonomous Procurement Platform to automate business processes and drive efficiency.
The Results
Now one year later, Vodafone has:
- Launched a minimum viable product (MVP) in two months
- Implemented an autonomous procurement platform in 11 countries in eight different procurement areas, including Marketing, IT services, and consulting
- Scaled the platform to more than 1,000 users from 11 countries in Europe and Africa
But the company isn’t done yet. Vodafone plans to continue to build on its investment and become an industry-leading platform for a wide range of procurement categories.
Vodafone also plans to use its Pega solution to introduce processes to protect against supply chain risks and continue to build ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) criteria into supplier selection.
Related Resources
Case study
See how Mondelez simplifies procurement workflows.
Data sheet
See the power of Pega's low-code platform.
Insights
Explore how Pega drives digital transformation in CSPs.