The challenge

A large financial services firm with over 8,000 employees across the UK, Europe and North America was experiencing significant friction in its procurement operations. The procurement department processed approximately 2,200 purchase orders per month across three regional offices. The process was manual at almost every step.

Procurement cycle time was 28 business days on average. Delays were distributed across the lifecycle: intake took 3–5 days, approval routing took 5–8 days because approvers were chased by email, supplier compliance screening took 4–7 days because it was entirely manual, and PO creation took 3–5 days because it required manual data entry into SAP.

Supplier onboarding took an average of 42 days. Paper-based onboarding packs, manual compliance screening and sequential handoffs between procurement, legal, compliance and finance meant every new supplier was a multi-week project.

Supplier data quality in SAP was poor. Duplicate supplier records, incorrect bank details, mismatched addresses and incomplete compliance records created operational risk and audit findings on a recurring basis.

Approval routing was inconsistent. The delegation of authority was enforced manually via a spreadsheet maintained by the finance team. The matrix was not always current and there was no systematic record of whether approvals complied with the delegation at the point they were given.

Maverick purchasing was widespread. An internal audit found approximately 20% of supplier engagements had been initiated outside the formal procurement process, creating uncontrolled spend and supplier relationships with no contract or compliance record.

Invoice processing was a persistent bottleneck. Three-way matching was manual. Around 30% of invoices triggered matching exceptions. Average resolution time was 11 days per exception.

The CPO engaged Jalubro to redesign the end-to-end procurement process and implement the technology and integrations needed to support it.

What Jalubro delivered

Phase 1: Process assessment and redesign (8 weeks)

Jalubro mapped every step from purchase request to invoice payment across all three regional offices, identifying 17 distinct manual handoffs in the end-to-end process. Each handoff was assessed for necessity, frequency and delay contribution.

Jalubro redesigned the process around four principles: automated intake routing, real-time delegation of authority enforcement, parallel-path supplier onboarding and exception-based invoice matching. The redesigned process reduced manual handoffs from 17 to 4.

A new delegation of authority matrix was designed in collaboration with finance and legal, replacing the manually maintained spreadsheet with a dynamic, role-based approval model integrated directly into the procurement workflow.

Phase 2: Platform implementation and supplier onboarding redesign (5 months)

Jalubro implemented a procurement platform with automated intake, configurable approval routing, digital supplier onboarding and integrated compliance screening. The platform was connected to SAP as the system of record for PO creation and financial commitments.

Supplier onboarding was redesigned as a digital, parallel-path process. Suppliers complete a structured onboarding portal. Compliance screening runs automatically against sanctions lists and risk databases. Legal review and finance validation run in parallel rather than sequentially. The 42-day average was reduced to under 13 days.

Supplier data remediation. Jalubro led a full cleanse of the SAP supplier master, deduplicating records, correcting bank details and completing missing compliance documentation. Data quality standards and maintenance processes were put in place to prevent recurrence.

Invoice matching and exception handling. Three-way matching was automated within the platform. Exceptions are categorised automatically by type and routed to the appropriate resolver with SLA-based escalation. Average exception resolution time reduced from 11 days to under 3.

Phase 3: SAP integration and spend visibility

The integration with SAP was delivered in two directions. Approved purchase orders flow from the procurement platform into SAP automatically, eliminating manual PO creation. Invoice payment data flows from SAP back into the procurement platform, giving the procurement team real-time visibility of committed and paid spend.

A spend visibility dashboard was built for the CPO and category managers, showing committed spend by category, supplier and budget code in real time. Variance alerts are triggered when spend against a budget code exceeds 80% of the approved budget, giving category managers the opportunity to reforecast or escalate before overspend occurs.

The results

What made the difference