Financial Services Company Saves 11 Weeks of Time with Supplier Reviews

This financial services company spent hours on hundreds of new and existing supplier reviews until they found Graphite and were able to implement time-saving automation.

The company has partnered with financial institutions to provide insurance tracking services for vehicle and mortgage loans, GAP insurance, and over 100 other valuable products and services. 

The Problem?

Without a historic strategic sourcing department, when their vice president of strategic sourcing joined the team, they immediately saw the opportunity to properly position the company with its suppliers, something they had been unable to do previously. As their VP of strategic sourcing built out a more solid understanding of the company’s relationship with suppliers and the associated contracts, they also saw the need to standardize supplier onboarding.

With these issues in mind, they began vetting possible solutions to improve their due diligence and supplier onboarding processes. Graphite became a standout because of the possibilities it brought with time-saving automation. 

Up to this point, the information security team had a very detailed and complex system of operations to keep things running. In order to improve those due diligence processes, they’d need to embrace Graphite. At first, skepticism was the general feeling because they could not see how Graphite could keep up with the complexity of their needs. However, as soon as the team realized that Graphite would not replace their processes but rather eliminate the manual non-value-adding tasks from their plates – they jumped on board.

The Solution?

Saving valuable time.

Implementing Graphite’s automation ultimately saved each information security team member two hours per supplier review. For a company that doesn’t just worry about new supplier reviews but also continuously refreshes and reviews current suppliers, this became hundreds and hundreds of hours saved. 

The company is now connected with 294 suppliers and sent 25 invites in the last month. This means they’re now saving 440 hours per year– or 11 weeks of someone’s time.

Graphite also saved time by implementing automation that aided in due diligence efforts. Security is essential for business, and ensuring all suppliers’ security due diligence is constantly up to date is extremely time-consuming.

Graphite saved time in this process by automating all of the necessary communication to keep these security documents up to date. The information security team can still keep a hands-on approach to their efforts while letting Graphite take on mundane and time-consuming tasks like asking for updated documents. The team can still have control over the review process without ever sending a single email. 

Updating these processes has allowed the company to update and manage all supplier contracts, gaining the necessary due diligence for both new and recurring suppliers. And they can do all of this in a timely manner. 

Standardizing supplier onboarding.

The other important change was standardizing the company’s supplier onboarding process. With such a small strategic sourcing team, negotiations and contracts were distributed throughout the organization.

This wasn’t an ideal scenario, and it needed to change. Implementing the new supplier justification form made working with procurement simple and easy. The form is housed inside Graphite and works through single sign-on, making it easy for all stakeholders to find and use. 

Utilizing this form has allowed procurement to be involved in a higher percentage of supplier onboarding, taking work off the plates of other employees. It has worked so efficiently that some employees have even begun asking procurement if there are existing suppliers they could work with instead of onboarding a new supplier. 

With this new process, visibility into the onboarding process has increased exponentially. Instead of living in personal email streams, stakeholders can easily see where their request currently stands in the process. 

One of the most unexpected results of standardizing employer onboarding was that it made the process of requesting new suppliers simple and easy and even helped employees see what suppliers they were already working with. Instead of immediately seeking a new supplier, some stakeholders would seek suppliers already working with the company that could fulfill their needs. 

Allowing for greater reporting and tracking.

Because the company can now keep its most current and up-to-date contracts in Graphite, it stays ahead of renewal dates much easier. This became important because it allowed them to make significant decisions well ahead of time about which suppliers to renew or not.

In other words, they were able to begin implementing a supplier strategy. This became an advantage to the company in saving money, not keeping on excessive or risky suppliers, and not coming up against renewal dates they didn’t see coming. 

With greater reporting and tracking capabilities, the company is armed to continue making important strategic decisions and tracking their success over time in a way they’ve never been able to before.

What’s next?

The changes that the company has seen through implementing Graphite have been impressive enough that they’ve captured the attention of senior leaders in the company. Procurement has become one of the most exciting areas of growth and change for the business. 

They’ve even been able to begin implementing policies such as a supplier diversity policy that has also seen major buy-in from senior leadership and other employees. Procurement has become a department to look up to– saving the company substantial time and money and becoming more progressive in its aspirations.