A Leading Security Company Modernizes Project Procurement
About the company
A security and surveillance provider delivering large public programmes and events, buying CCTV, IT equipment and site services against dates that do not move. Thirty people buy for fifteen active sites, each with its own logistics.
- Industry
- Security & infrastructure services
- Scale
- A 30-person buying team covering 15 active project sites
- Scope
- Sourcing, approvals, purchase orders, goods receipt, invoices and payment
At a glance
Before Proconomy
- Remote sites, heavy logistics
- Three tools, no whole process
- Supplier reach stopped at the familiar few
- Receiving could not find the order
- Payment terms varied order by order
After Proconomy
- Freight is in the award
- One approval process, every site
- Suppliers quote without learning a portal
- Receipts match the order
- Clean invoices stop waiting
Key products
- Sourcing & RFx
- eAuctions
- Procure-to-Pay
- Supplier portal
The challenge
The business delivers security and surveillance for large public programmes and events, which means buying CCTV, IT equipment and site services against dates that do not move. Thirty people did that buying across fifteen active sites. None of them was working badly. They were working in Google Apps Script, in Odoo, in signed PDFs and in WhatsApp, and no two sites had settled on the same combination.
The requirement was ordinary and hard: find suppliers near the site, and run one process from request to payment at every site.
Remote sites, heavy logistics
Deliveries to remote project sites carried high transportation costs, and what it cost to get goods there was not part of the award decision.
Three tools, no whole process
Google Apps Script, Odoo and signed PDFs each held part of procurement. None of them held all of it, and the joins were done by people.
Supplier reach stopped at the familiar few
Buyers compared two or three vendors they already knew, mostly over WhatsApp, because going wider meant more chasing than a deadline allowed.
Receiving could not find the order
Warehouse teams struggled to match an arriving delivery to the right purchase order, and partial deliveries made it harder.
Payment terms varied order by order
The same supplier could carry seven-day terms on one purchase order and thirty-day terms on another, and whoever processed the invoice had to know which.
What the business actually asked for
Not a platform. Five things that cost a buyer time on a site with a deadline.
- Suppliers near each site, compared on what delivery actually costs.
- One buying process covering direct, indirect and project spend.
- A way to get quotes from suppliers who will not log into a portal.
- Deliveries matched to the right purchase order at the point they arrive.
- Payment terms applied from the order rather than from memory.
What we built
Local vendor discovery on total landed cost, one configurable source-to-pay workflow, sourcing over WhatsApp, QR-coded goods receipt and automated invoice matching.
Local vendor discovery
Buyers search for suppliers near the site and compare them on total landed cost rather than on unit price alone.
One configurable source-to-pay workflow
A single workflow covering direct, indirect and project buying, configured per category instead of split across tools.
Sourcing over WhatsApp, properly
Secure links sent to suppliers capture RFQ responses and live auction bids, in the channel those suppliers already use.
QR-coded goods receipt
A scan opens the purchase order and its lines on the spot, and records partial deliveries against it.
Automated invoice matching
Invoices are matched automatically against the order and the receipt, and the payment terms stored on that specific purchase order are applied to them.
The result
Suppliers quote without learning a portal, deliveries are recorded against the right order, and all fifteen sites buy the same way.
Freight is in the award
Teams select suppliers on total landed cost, so the cost of reaching a remote site is part of the decision rather than something discovered after it.
One approval process, every site
The same governed path now covers every buying type across all fifteen sites.
Suppliers quote without learning a portal
Vendors respond from the app already open on their phone, so a quote does not depend on portal adoption first.
Receipts match the order
Complete and partial deliveries are both recorded against the right purchase order, at the point the goods arrive.
Clean invoices stop waiting
Invoices that agree move without intervention, and the ones that do not appear as named exceptions rather than as silence.
See this running on your own numbers — fifteen minutes, no slides.
Request a workflow demonstrationThis will sound familiar. If any of these are you.
- Your buying happens at sites rather than at a head office, and each site has worked out its own way of doing it.
- Suppliers get a WhatsApp message because the alternative is a portal they will not log into.
- The cheapest quote regularly turns out not to be the cheapest delivery.
- Somebody has to remember which payment terms apply to which purchase order.
Where this connects
The questions we get asked.
WhatsApp carries a link, not the sourcing event. The RFQ, the supplier response and the auction bid all live in the platform with the audit trail attached, and the link is scoped to one supplier and one event. What the channel provides is the notification — which is the part that decides whether a supplier responds at all.
The source-to-pay process moved onto one workflow. The enterprise systems of record were connected rather than replaced, which is how every deployment on this site is scoped — what each existing tool keeps doing is settled before anything is built, not discovered afterwards.
The approval process is one process; what runs through it is not one thing. Direct, indirect and project buying each follow their own configured path inside it, and a site keeps its own thresholds and local supplier base. Standardising the governance is not the same as standardising the purchase.
Waiting for a quote, and then waiting to find out what arrived. Those are the two gaps this closed — a supplier who can answer without logging in anywhere, and a receipt that is recorded by the person holding the box. The approval step itself was never the slow part.
The same problem, at your scale
Every group that runs more than one operating company arrives at the same place: policy that exists on paper, applied differently in every plant, evidenced by whoever happens to remember. Bring us the workflow where that costs you the most, and we will run it against your rules.
Someone from client success replies, not a sales sequence. If we are not a fit we will say so on the first call.
Not ready to talk to anyone?
Fair enough. Both of these work without giving us your email.