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 checks took 4–7 days because compliance screening was 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 handoffs between procurement, legal, compliance and finance.

Supplier data quality in SAP was poor. Duplicate records, incorrect bank details, mismatched addresses and incomplete compliance records.

Approval routing was inconsistent. The delegation of authority was enforced manually via a spreadsheet maintained by finance. The matrix was not always current. There was no systematic record of whether approvals complied with the delegation.

Maverick purchasing was widespread. An internal audit found approximately 20% of supplier engagements had been initiated outside the formal procurement process.

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

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. The assessment identified 17 distinct manual handoffs in the end-to-end process. Jalubro redesigned the process around three principles: eliminate manual handoffs through automation, enforce governance within the workflow rather than through manual checks, and create a connected process where data flows from intake through to payment without re-keying.

The redesigned process reduced the 17 manual handoffs to 4 (points where genuine human judgment was required).

Phase 2: Procurement platform implementation (5 months)

Automated intake and categorisation. Structured digital forms with automatic categorisation and routing. Low-risk, low-value requests auto-approved.

Dynamic approval routing. The delegation of authority enforced dynamically within the platform. Approvals validated against the live delegation matrix. Unavailable approvers automatically rerouted to defined alternates. Non-compliant approvals blocked and escalated. Every approval decision logged.

Automated supplier onboarding. Self-service onboarding portal for suppliers. Automated compliance screening including sanctions checks, adverse media screening and company registry verification. Compliant suppliers automatically created in SAP.

Integrated compliance screening. AML, sanctions and financial health checks integrated into the onboarding workflow and run automatically at onboarding and on a scheduled basis thereafter.

SAP integration. Bidirectional: approved purchase orders flow into SAP, supplier master data synchronised between systems, invoice data flows back for visibility and reporting.

Three-way matching automation. Invoices matching within tolerances approved automatically. Exceptions routed to defined resolvers with full context attached.

Phase 3: Spend visibility and controls

Real-time spend dashboards. Spend by category, supplier, business unit and region. Budget consumption tracked with automatic alerts.

Category-based spend controls. Spend limits enforced within the procurement workflow.

Maverick spend detection. Invoices without POs, supplier payments without onboarding records and commitments made without approval flagged in real time.

Phase 4: Change management and adoption

Role-based training, regional champions, and a formal adoption measurement framework tracking usage, process compliance and cycle time. Weekly dashboards for the CPO with targeted interventions for teams below target.

The results

45% reduction in procurement cycle time. From 28 business days to 15.

70% reduction in supplier onboarding time. From 42 days to 12.

Supplier data quality transformed. Duplicate records reduced by 85%. Zero critical data quality findings in the most recent audit, compared with 14 previously.

Delegation of authority enforced dynamically. 340+ incorrect approval routings identified and prevented in the first twelve months.

Maverick purchasing reduced from 20% to under 4%.

Invoice matching exception rate reduced from 30% to 8%. Average exception resolution time from 11 days to 3 days.

Full audit trail across every procurement decision. Most recent internal audit completed in half the time of the previous year.

What made the difference

Process redesign before technology. The 17-to-4 handoff reduction was an operating model decision, not a platform configuration.

Integration as the foundation. SAP integration designed in Phase 1, built in parallel, live from day one.

Change management with teeth. Adoption measurement, regional champions and CPO-led interventions ensured consistent adoption across all three offices.

To discuss how Jalubro can transform procurement operations for your organisation, contact our team.