Without Ivalua: Missing processes & maverick buying

In companies, it is often the little things that take up time almost unnoticed. Whether it’s ordering IT equipment for new employees or typing up a quote for an ergonomic desk. Employees navigate between a multitude of processes, search for the right contact persons, and often write countless emails to achieve the desired goal. If the time required is high and the information available is poor, this leads to requirements not even being recorded in the first place, but only invoices being submitted. The actual costs are only recorded with the invoice through so-called maverick buying – if at all. Transparency and compliance fall by the wayside.

What sounds like exaggerated chaos is still a reality in many companies. However, improving the recording of requirements not only benefits employees, but also offers the opportunity to record requirements in a bundled manner, keep them compliant, and free up capacity for strategic work that is too often tied up in operational tasks. AI offers an unprecedented opportunity to optimize and automate processes in a user-friendly way. This makes requesting a need as easy as asking Alexa to change the radio station.

Ivalua’s Intake Management Module succeeds in bringing order to the chaos described above. Processes can be comprehensively simplified and presented transparently and efficiently to all involved.

With Ivalua: Guided buying – but smarter

No matter what the user needs, they start with the IVA chatbot or on the Ivalua homepage and enter their request there. IVA analyzes the request and suggests a suitable category or asks additional, more detailed questions. The user is then directed to the appropriate internal catalog or punch-out or receives support in creating their free-text request. The focus is always on a high degree of user-friendliness and transparency, combined with compliance with all relevant approval processes within the set compliance guidelines.

AI helps to gather all the information needed by the purchasing team and, if necessary, finds the right contact person. Once the request has been created, the user can track its progress in clear process diagrams and ask questions via a chat function. Intake management not only saves requesters time and hassle, but can also leverage savings potential and increase efficiency throughout the company in the long term. But this is just one of many predefined scenarios for the intake management solution. We have summarized a few more scenarios here:

• Contract creation made easy
  Artificial intelligence makes creating new contracts or uploading existing ones much more efficient. The solution analyzes the contents of a contract and creates the contract in Ivalua—ready for internal review and further rounds of negotiations with the supplier. This frees up valuable time for your legal and purchasing teams to focus on strategic decisions instead of manual data entry.
• Start tenders intelligently
  The starting point for a tender has never been easier: users enter a few key data and requirements, and a structured sourcing request is generated. The user is guided step by step through the rest of the process. Full transparency about the next milestones is always guaranteed. This ensures that requirements are quickly and correctly converted into structured tenders in accordance with the rules – without complex forms or queries.

• Easy registration of new suppliers
  With Ivalua Intake Management, adding new suppliers becomes a guided, AI-supported process: the solution helps users enter the few pieces of information required, while all other data can be conveniently retrieved from the Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) database.Integrated approval workflows, credit checks, and compliance checks not only increase efficiency but also the quality of supplier data—without any Excel chaos or email ping-pong. The registration and further qualification steps remain transparent and traceable for all parties involved.

From quotation to order without tedious typing

Several powerful add-ons are already available to further optimize intake management in Ivalua – the “From Quote to Order” add-on is particularly noteworthy here. This feature takes digitization in the procurement process to a new level: the user simply uploads a quote PDF – whether from an external supplier or from an email – and the integrated AI takes care of the rest. It analyzes the document, automatically extracts all relevant information such as items, quantities, and prices, and uses this to create a structured purchase requisition in the system. Manual and error-prone typing is completely eliminated. The result: significant time savings, reduced error rates, and a fully digital process from inquiry to order.

Further updates planned

The standard forms and scenarios can be customized and expanded in Ivalua’s Intake Management module. Third-party systems can also be connected. Intake Management can be used both within the Ivalua Suite and as a standalone solution. Many other features are already in the planning or implementation stage in the development roadmap and offer the potential to implement further process simplifications and automations.

Are you also struggling with fragmented requirements that you want to get on the right track?

We would be happy to show you how Ivalua’s Intake Management module can bring order to chaos in your company and provide your employees with optimal support in all procurement processes and beyond. Contact us for a personalized consultation or see how Ivalua can take your procurement processes to the next level in a live demo.