In the many forms that it comes in, the main aim of procurement technology is to bring about efficiency in the entire lifecycle of a procurement contract. Being a pretty overarching department, procurement is involved with contract management, supplier relationships, sourcing in the supply chain and also supply chain management. Managing these tasks has made procurement and the corresponding technology one of the most crucial components of any organization. And a procure-to-pay platform is just a tool that accelerates the process in a much more advanced manner.
Featuring in The Enterprise World’s issue of The Best SAP Service Providers in 2022 is Vroozi, a platform intelligently digitizing procure-to-pay processes.
The Company-
Vroozi is a business spend management and accounts payable invoice automation platform for the modern workforce. Vroozi integrates an e-commerce marketplace, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to orchestrate and digitize B2B transactions with speed and confidence allowing organizations to realize immediate cost savings in terms of productivity, accuracy, and item pricing.
Their mobile-first and no-code Spendtech® platform integrates seamlessly with leading ERP and Financial systems like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and NetSuite and can scale dynamically from a growth-stage manufacturing company to a Fortune 500 media multi-national company.
The company is distributed 100% in the cloud since its inception in 2012 and has customers in 21countries. Adding to a unique set of services, Vroozi is all set to step into the future with their upcoming platform innovations including integrating digital payments and supply chain financing with their invoice automation platform. The platform will also provide proactive cost-savings recommendations using industry benchmarks, which will really make the platform stand out from the rest.
Overcoming the Challenges-
“When starting a company, I always like to think of the challenges in two contexts, proof and sustainability both with potential customers and internally to the company,” says Shaz Khan Cofounder & CEO.
For me, the heart of the External Proofs is whether the product is ready. Can businesses scale? Can it deliver the value over the contract period at the price paid?
Whether you can maintain the interest of your employees is the heart of the Internal Proofs. Can the company sell and market effectively? Do employees enjoy solving problems for customers using technology? Do you trust leadership and the people that you work with?
For sustainability I often consider: How can you support the gaps in the platform, the customers’ business requirements, and new innovation at scale? Do you have enough funding? Where is the company going in terms of strategic direction and roadmap?
There are constant challenges in any company, whether you are a start-up or established growth. The key is to always be organized, spend some time each month on scenario planning and evaluating the proofs, and know your financials every day!
The Growth Quotient-
A few years ago, Vroozi initiated a customer and market segmentation analysis targeted towards mid-market customers ($250M – $1.5B) who were using SAP but not getting high adoption and usage rates.
In this study, they found that the companies were receptive to deploying eProcurement, Marketplace, and Invoice Automation on top of SAP but they did not want to disrupt their current IT landscape and infrastructure.
This targeted approach of Vroozi bolting on to SAP systems became an inflection point for growth and since, the company has successfully integrated with over 25 ERP and Financial software systems.
The following infographic shows Vroozi’s continuous innovation curve since 2012. The company started out with Vroozi Catalog and Marketplace and has built an end-to-end Procure-to-Pay solution.
Steady, Strong Growth-
“Three things that come to mind: resiliency, retention, and relevancy.”
Running a business is about always staying relevant to your customers and the market in terms of innovation, competition, and support, and being a constant employer of choice for your team. A dynamic and motivated workforce who enjoys not only the work environment but also the tasks that they are working on are key to a happy workforce.
One example of staying relevant is that Vroozi runs annual hackathons where team members come together for a week and build capabilities and features relevant to a mission. This allows team members to experiment with newer technologies and frameworks to innovate at a rapid rate and introduce new cutting-edge capabilities into the platform like artificial intelligence, voice recognition, and predictive analytics. We have introduced many innovative capabilities to the market through the hackathon event.
Their Suite of Products and Services-
“We take a very hands-on and consultative approach in understanding the key pain points that a customer is looking to solve with their solution.”
With this, Vroozi provides new customers with a thorough blueprint document that outlines the specifics of how the team will configure the platform to meet or exceed their key performance indicators.
In addition, they have a Customer Success organization that is responsible for meeting with customers regularly, accelerating satisfaction, and helping to train them in best practices.
The Vroozi Spendtech® platform is a suite of twelve modules wrapped in an extremely user-friendly interface that digitizes how companies purchase the products and services they need to power their business, and processes invoices from and payments to suppliers using automation and AI/ML. The simplicity, the automation, and the integration allows companies to drive end user adoption, lower transactional and processing costs, and save on infrastructure and maintenance run costs.
“We provide a comprehensive set of Service Level Agreements that focus on uptime, maintenance periods, and continuous innovation. Last year, we had eight major releases of new functionality and performance improvements in the platform with zero downtime.”
Vroozi’s differentiators focus on 3 M’s:
Mobile – All user experiences and interfaces are made available across any mobile device
Modern – Easy to use and flexible user interfaces with a modern consumer-like experience and automation
Modular – Pick the modules in their suite that you want to implement in your organization or integrate the entire Vroozi suite into your landscape
Another key area for Vroozi is that while they deploy their platform as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), they also provide standardized self-service options so companies can configure the software according to their business requirements without having to pay for extensive development.
When SaaS is deployed correctly at scale, it’s a game changer for companies who can focus on their revenue and growth as opposed to managing complex software systems.
In addition to their services, Vroozi also runs a user group and customer advisory board where they receive continuous feedback from the customers. With this board, Vroozi aims to resolve the problems the customers are facing and also look closely in the areas where they can improve. This feedback loop is critical to helping the customers drive results years after they implement the solution.
Shaz Khan- Leading the Way
Cofounder & CEO
“I believe an entrepreneur needs to balance responsibilities across personal development and growth, company direction and strategic vision, and community.”
Being an entrepreneur entails responsibilities that give the company a proper direction and a vision to work on. An entrepreneur is the one setting the strategic direction and vision for the company. They are also the ones building a world-class team with a diverse workforce in thought leadership and experience.
At times, they leverage the connections to build a network of customers, partners and mentors. And always serves as a motivating and inspirational role model.
Having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs, Shaz Khan was always motivated to start his own venture. Shaz’ father was part of a founding team for numerous computer hardware and peripheral companies and his mother and sister are successful global event planners. So, the solid values of being an entrepreneur were always in front of his eyes.
Shaz started his career in management consulting with an emphasis on supply chain optimization, and improving visibility and productivity for employees and suppliers across the supply chain and purchasing functions for large global companies.
After a few years, he caught the entrepreneurial bug and started ERP solutions consultancies focused on SAP and Oracle as well as e-commerce software companies. Shaz got his “aha” moment for Vroozi when the consulting team put together a thick manual to train ERP users on how to buy so that they would adopt the procurement system.
Vroozi represents a blend of Shaz’s interests in software design and user experience, management consulting, and consumer technologies, to address the challenges businesses have with antiquated, inflexible B2B systems.
“We have set out to consumerize and digitize B2B commerce with Vroozi.”
A Journey of Accolades-
In his entrepreneurial journey, Shaz has been recognized for numerous achievements with Vroozi, but his proudest is building teams across multiple time zones and learning from a diverse set of individuals globally.
Vroozi recently implemented its complete Vroozi Purchasing and Accounts Payable automation platform in Osaka, Japan for a large theme park and localized the entire platform to the Japanese market despite having limited resources in the country.
Shaz’ Advice to the Budding Entrepreneurs-
“You started a company with a vision for solving a problem that you saw in the market; stay true to that vision but adjust with agility.
Seek out and learn from a select group of mentors that have built successful businesses or failed in between – there are so many people that want to share their stories; network and make it happen.
Trust your instincts – enough said there.
OWN your decisions. You are human and you will make decisions that might not go as planned or are not popular, but making the decision is far better than being indecisive.
Growth is on you – as an entrepreneur, you are the best storyteller and proof point for your business. Build channels, spend time with prospects, and go the extra mile to get the sales.”
