Executive Summary
A leading player in life sciences procurement and the biopharmaceutical and biotech industry, partnered with JAGGAER to revolutionize their procurement processes and support their ambitious growth plans. With six global sites and a team of 4,500, the challenge was to create a scalable, transparent procurement strategy that could accommodate rapid expansion. By implementing JAGGAER eProcurement, the company achieved a remarkable 300% increase in procurement ROI, accelerated onboarding for new sites, and a shift from manual, labor-intensive processes to a streamlined, automated system.
The flexible infrastructure of JAGGAER’s solution allowed the company to maintain consistent procurement standards while adapting to the unique needs of different sites. This approach led to an improved user experience, enhanced compliance, and significant time savings. Procurement efficiency increased by more than 350%, and user adoption soared thanks to the system’s intuitive design and transparent workflows. As a result, the company not only optimized purchasing but also achieved greater control and compliance, setting a new standard in the industry.
Results
300%+
ROI
50%
of purchases via punchout
4-5 days
to same-day requisitions
About the Customer
This leading company in life sciences works in strategic collaboration with biopharmaceutical and biotech companies to develop and manufacture the latest in biologics, advanced therapies, and vaccines.
Business Challenge
Establish consistent, transparent procurement processes to support growth plans.
JAGGAER Approach to Solution Implement and provide expert guidance for self-serve eProcurement through JAGGAER One to accelerate procure-to-pay and position the organization for planned growth.
Impacts Achieved with JAGGAER eProcurement
- ROI in the procurement group increased by more than 300%
- Improved user experience to encourage adoption and improve purchasing compliance
- Accelerated on-boarding of new development sites through flexible infrastructure
The overall benefit we’re seeing on a regular basis is that we’ve been able to drive to where we are today – a global sourcing and procurement organization.
Head of North America Procurement
Improving the User Experience to Future-Ready Growth
Since the late 1990s the parent company, a global conglomerate, has successfully diversified. Today, just under half of the global conglomerate’s revenue of around $20 billion is represented by its life science companies, and this biotechnologies company is one of them.
As a contract development and manufacturing organization (CMDO), the organization partners with global biopharma and biotech companies to help develop and manufacture therapies that meet a variety of medical needs, from autoimmune and viral to cancer and vaccines.
Understandably, for such an organization, with facilities in the US, UK, and Europe, the function of procurement is both essential and involved. Classified into four divisions according to region and contract category, a single global lead oversees their collaboration and crossover. In the last year there has been a concerted investment into professional procurement, represented by a shift from reactive purchasing to a proactive procure to pay approach. But it wasn’t always that way.
Several years ago, with just two sites in North America and the UK, each site managed its procurement independently via a manual, labor-intensive process. “There was no strategy, no evaluation, no negotiating, and no savings,” said the company’s Head of North America Procurement. End-users were spending substantial time engaged in procurement activities rather than doing laboratory or engineering work. “There was a lot of admin, a huge amount of inefficiency, and it was impossible to scale,” he added. “That’s why we decided to go with a P2P platform – to reduce the churn, open us up to be scalable, and release our end-users to be able to do what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Having been in procurement consulting I’ve used quite a few purchase–to–pay systems. The user experience is better with JAGGAER.
Head of Global Category Management
Providing Flexible Infrastructure for Faster Onboarding
The solution architecture of JAGGAER One was a key draw – especially the business unit process, which granted a backbone infrastructure while allowing flexibility where different sites had different approaches and approval processes. But most importantly, it had the advantage of cutting down on implementation time – a priority for the company, as it grows mainly through the acquisition of existing sites, making swift and efficient onboarding a necessity.
“You can implement another site fairly quickly with the business unit, yet keep them separate,” the Head of NA Procurement continued, “so you can limit the visibility if needed, and keep the approval flows very specific for the different units.” It was JAGGAER’s background in science, knowledge of the industry, and experience in working with universities that transformed its procurement solution into a foundation for growth.
Use of JAGGAER One is now adopted enterprise wide. “The biggest thing in eProcurement is how the requisitions flow through the approval process and the transparency and alerts it provides,” the Head of NA Procurement explained. “Plus, the flexibility to create whatever workflows are necessary.” To protect flexibility as more locations are added, the company adopted a self-serve model, letting departments decide whether they want to designate one dedicated individual to do all the purchasing for that department, or allow people to make the purchases themselves. Approval workflows ensure they go to the appropriate approvals regardless of who puts in the requisition. “So, there’s always visibility and transparency of that process,” the Head of NA Procurement added.
Making it easy and eliminating hurdles was critical, and not just for The customer. “Things move quickly in the CMDO space,” he explained. “Especially on the development side, in the labs. You often have to adjust on the fly – in which case you have to be able to get your products or your lab materials in as soon as you possibly can.”
Through the journey of automating the procurement processes, JAGGAER helped the customer enhance its compliance capabilities. The platform automatically ensures adherence to corporate policies, J-SOX regulations, and GAAP standards. This means that every procurement activity is streamlined and fully compliant with the necessary financial and corporate guidelines, saving resources while strengthening compliance in one place.
“We’re very confident that we’re compliant with that and we have the data and the history to show,” the Head of NA Procurement said.
Enabling Scalability and Procurement Compliance
The benefits of implementing JAGGAER One have been significant for The customer. “It used to take four to five days on average to get a requisition out the door,” the Head of NA Procurement recalled. “Now we’re probably five or six times the size that we were – in terms of the number of requisitions we’re pushing through – and most go out within the same day.” It represents an improvement of roughly 350% – realized within a year. “It relieved quite a bit of time from our folks,” he said. “Because of that we were able to see an increase in savings of 100-fold.” The procurement ROI increased by more than 300%, exceeding expectations. “We went from an ROI of probably one, to an ROI of six within four years,” he said. “At the time, if you were to go out in the industry, the best-in-class ROI was about six. So, to hit six was amazing.”
The continuously improving user experience has excited team members to use the system, making organization-wide adoption easy to drive even further benefits. “We don’t want people to buy stuff in store then expense it,” explained the company’s Head of Global Category Management.
“We want them to go to the appropriate vendors, for the appropriate products, through the appropriate channels, and we can organize that in JAGGAER. Keeping people procurement compliant is easy when you have a good user experience – that, for me, is the great advantage.”
Today, around 50% of the customer’s purchases go through the punchout catalogs – an eProcurement solution that enables buyers to shop for goods and services from within their existing procurement workflow. “That has helped tremendously from a use–case perspective,” the Head of NA Procurement said, recalling a time when if a colleague wanted to purchase something they would first have to get a quote from a vendor. “Now, with the punch out, those vendors have our contract and pricing, so if colleagues go to the catalog, the price is our price; they can put it in their cart and check out – no quotes required,” he explained. It creates more efficiency, makes for a smoother user experience, and directs staff toward preferred vendors.
The improvement in savings, compliance, and efficiency inspired this customer to discover additional processes that could use the same optimizations. Other departments within the company are using JAGGAER One solutions. The commercial team, responsible for business development and sales, use JAGGAER Contracts and the Head of NA Procurement is eager to expand his procurement team’s collaborative use of the additional solution. “That will really help us manage our contract process better along with legal, adding that transparency and putting in the appropriate workflows and processes when people need contracts or when we’re working through contracts,” he said.
The partnership with JAGGAER is an established one for this company, cultivated over more than ten years, speaking as much to the nature of its relationship as the impact of its solutions.
“JAGGAER are very friendly, very service minded, and ready to bring the right people to the conversation when needed,” the Head of Global Category Management said. “It’s never just been transactional. I appreciate that – it makes everything efficient.”
Conclusion
The transformation of the customer’s procurement operations underscores the power of strategic partnerships and technology-driven solutions. By collaborating with JAGGAER, the company moved from fragmented, site-specific procurement processes to a unified and scalable global strategy. The organization’s investment in tools that prioritize user experience and flexibility led to greater savings, efficiency, and compliance. But the journey doesn’t end here; this leading biotechnologies firm is poised to continue expanding its use of JAGGAER’s solutions, further refining its procurement and contract management capabilities. Focusing on maintaining a future-ready strategy ensures the organization sustained growth and success.
