SUCCESS STORY
60% cycle time reduction
US regional bank: Transforming the procure-to-pay process
- Delivered faster onboarding, better governance, and improved compliance
Outcomes
reduced cycle time
Procure-to-pay cycle shortened from 23 to 9 days
faster onboarding
Vendor onboarding time reduced from 14 to 4 days
improved governance
£14.2 million in spend flagged and rejected
broad user adoption
400+ end-users and 45 approvers trained on the new platform
strong early uptake
Over 100 business requests centralised and processed
BACKGROUND
A regional US bank wanted to transform its procurement and payables processes by redesigning the procure-to-pay (P2P) workflow and implementing the Zip platform.
The goal was to maintain a decentralised operating model but enable it through a self-service, policy-driven platform for all commercial requests, resulting in efficiency, control, and compliance improvements.
the challenge
The bank’s procurement cycle suffered from inefficiencies caused by manual processes and fragmented systems. The key challenges included:
- Cumbersome vendor onboarding and intake procedures
- Disconnected approval channels
- No NDA compliance framework
- No ability to track P2P cycle times
- Unenforced procurement policies and decentralised governance
These issues resulted in slow cycle times, compliance risk, and poor visibility across the organisation.
SOLUTION
4C worked closely with key stakeholders to design, configure, and test a new procurement tool. Key initiatives included:
- Designing end-to-end workflows for vendor onboarding, purchase requests, NDAs, and governance checks
- Creating an additional workflow for managing sourcing events and RFPs
- Embedding procurement policy in the system’s back-end architecture to reduce business friction
- Introducing a compliant NDA and contracting process
- Training 400+ end-users and 45 approvers across the business
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