Outcome Driven Solutions

Supplier Lifecycle Operations

Enhance supplier collaboration
and lower cost of goods and services

Supplier Lifecycel Operations is a comprehensive framework for managing and coordinating all aspects of interacting with suppliers and plays a vital role in fostering strong supplier relationships that enhance collaboration and ensure compliance.

ServiceNow Supplier LIfecycle Operations includes automated onboarding/offboarding workflows, self-service capabilities for suppliers, and secure document management to ensure compliance with corporate policies.

As ServiceNow Finance and Supply Chain experts, ODS helps organizations reduce supplier management overhead, optimize their supply base, improve contract terms, and identify opportunities for tail spend efficiency.

Case Study: Supplier Lifecycle Operations
with ServiceNow Source-to-Pay

A leading provider of enterprise-level security solutions faced operational inefficiencies in supplier onboarding, collaboration, document management, and risk compliance. These challenges led to elevated operational costs and supply chain disruptions. After a thorough evaluation, the company chose ServiceNow Source-to-Pay—implemented by Outcome Driven Solutions (ODS)—to enhance their Supplier Lifecycle Operations.

Challenges Before ServiceNow Source-to-Pay

  1. Lengthy and Complex Supplier Onboarding
    • Slow onboarding cycles and inconsistent compliance checks
    • Delayed time-to-value from new suppliers and increased administrative overhead
  2. Limited Supplier Collaboration
    • Siloed communication channels hindered strategic partnerships
    • No real-time visibility into supplier performance or engagement
  3. Excessive Time Spent on Low-Value Suppliers
    • Over 60% of suppliers contributed only 5% of total spend
    • Disproportionate time investment resulted in missed savings opportunities
  4. Inefficient Document Management
    • Reliance on manual document handling drove up administrative costs
    • Missing or outdated vendor records led to frequent compliance issues
  5. Inconsistent Supplier Optimization Strategy
    • No standardized framework to prioritize or segment high-performing suppliers
    • Organizational redundancies and inefficiencies inflated costs, reduced productivity
  6. Compliance and Risk Management Challenges
    • Maintaining valid certificates and licenses was largely reactive
    • Heightened risk of supply chain disruption and exposure to regulatory non-compliance

Why They Chose ServiceNow Source-to-Pay

After considering several options, they chose ServiceNow Source-to-Pay because it offered the right balance of capabilities for their requirements:

Automated and Optimized Supplier Compliance
  1. Automated and Centralized Document Management
    • Implemented Required Documents on vendor profiles to ensure Certificates of Insurance (COIs), Licenses, and Technical Certifications were on file and up to date.
    • Proactive email notifications are automatically sent to vendors to request updated documents before expiration
    • Vendors use the self-service Supplier Portal to complete required actions and upload requested documents.
    • Used DocIntel OCR to parse information for verification.
    • Verification tasks assigned to the support team to validate compliance information.
  2. Proactive Document Maintenance
    • Vendors received automated notifications 30 days before document expiry, providing ample time to submit updated documents and reducing compliance risks.
    • A structured “nag-o-matics” process sent additional reminders at predefined intervals, with predefined escalations that increased urgency.
    • Post-expiration, a task is assigned to the next group/role in the chain of command for compliance enforcement.
Identified and Optimized One-off Suppliers
  1. Spend Visualization
    • Dashboard revealed that 60% of the smallest suppliers accounted for just 5% of spend
    • Identified low-value, low-volume suppliers and targeted them for off-boarding.
  2. Rationalization Strategy
    • Identified repetitive transactions for goods and services that could be consolidated with preferred suppliers where appropriate
    • Allowed procurement teams to focus on strategic supplier relationships rather than transactional firefighting
Identified New Cost Savings with Current Suppliers
  1. Supply Base Optimization
    • Analyzed spend across tiers of suppliers to find negotiation leverage
    • Balanced supply chain redundancy (for risk mitigation) with volume consolidation (for cost savings)
    • Strengthened partnerships with key suppliers, positioning the company for favorable terms
    • Leveraged market intelligence to assess the company’s significance to each supplier, ensuring optimal negotiation leverage.
  2. Enhanced Contract Terms Management
    • Deployed the ServiceNow contract module to centralize key agreements
    • Meta-data captured across contracts for easy benchmarking of financial terms
    • Clause library ensured consistent application of recommended financial and risk clauses
    • Automated tasks flagged missing or suboptimal contract terms for immediate remediation
    • Achieved average savings of 1.3% through contract negotiations and terms optimizations.

Measured Results from First Year in Production

1st Year Recovered Spend: $4.1 million

1st Year Recovered Time: 9,452 Hours

Go Live: 6 Months

Days to Break Even*: 64

These metrics underscore the rapid ROI and tangible value that you can unlock using ServiceNow Sourcing Operations.
While these numbers are good, we typically see a steady increase in savings in years 2 and 3.

Outcomes Realized After Source-to-Pay

Benefits To the Procurement Team

  1. Improved Strategic Partnerships
    • High-value suppliers received more attention, enabling co-innovation and supplier-led improvements
  2. Contractual Rebates & Volume Incentives
    • Preferred suppliers benefitted from increased volume; the company benefited from financial incentives
  3. Automated Compliance
    • End-to-end compliance with vendor insurance certificates, licenses, and critical documentation
  4. Supply Base Rationalization
    • Balanced supplier redundancy with lower overhead to maintain agility and mitigate risk

Benefits to the Technology Team

  1. Adherence to Risk Policies
    • Outsourced technology partners fully aligned with IT security and data privacy requirements
  2. Faster Access to New Technologies
    • Streamlined onboarding accelerates proof-of-concept and go-to-market timelines
  3. Real-Time Performance Tracking
    • Live dashboards instill confidence in vendor performance and reliability
  4. Structured Backup Plans
    • Clear supply chain resiliency measures reduce downtime during disruptions
  5. Early Access to Emerging Technologies
    • Stronger relationships with key vendors secured first-look opportunities and market differentiation

Conclusion

By transforming Supplier Lifecycle Operations through ServiceNow Source-to-Pay, they were able to improve compliance, reduce administrative overhead, and unlock new cost savings opportunities. The resulting efficiencies have strengthened their supplier relationships and set the foundation for continuous improvement.

Customer Testimonial

“ServiceNow Source-to-Pay has been a game-changer for our e-commerce delivery operations. The platform streamlined our supplier management, allowing us to cut costs, improve compliance, and build stronger relationships with our vendors. The results speak for themselves—we recovered millions in the first year alone while enhancing overall efficiency.”

Key Takeaways & Next Steps

  • Actionable Tip: Start with an ROI analysis to establish benchmarks for tracking your results. If you need assistance, ODS has calculators that provide ROI estimates based on standardized practices and decades of previous experience.
  • Benchmarking: Regularly assess your progress with BI Analytics to track project alignment with expectations, avoid surprises, and optimize return on investments.

With the right technology and a clear, outcome-focused roadmap, organizations can achieve rapid, sustainable gains in procurement efficiency and ROI using ServiceNow Supplier Lifecycle operations.

Some incremental outcomes delivered ODS:

Supply base savings up to 10%
Supply Base Optimization

ODS can help you prioritize high-performing suppliers and phase out underperformers by leveraging integrated performance insights. You’ll be able to identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, streamlining your supply chain, and reducing procurement costs while boosting operational efficiency.

Reduce tail spend
by 25-40%
Tail Spend Optimization

ODS specializes in identifying and consolidating low-value, high-volume purchases that are often dispersed across non-strategic suppliers. By implementing intelligent controls and customized workflows, we reduce unmanaged spend, enabling your organization to secure better terms with fewer, more strategic partners.

Lower costs by 7% through joint initiatives.
Collaborative Cost Reduction

We enable joint cost-saving initiatives with your suppliers that foster shared efficiencies. Using value-driven analytics and streamlined communication, ODS facilitates collaborative process improvements and cost-reduction initiatives that deliver measurable financial benefits for both your organization and your suppliers.

Contract terms savings of 3-5%
Contract Terms Optimization
ODS analyzes supplier contracts to uncover the best pricing, terms, and conditions across agreements. By employing a market basket approach, we empower you to negotiate even more competitive vendor pricing, unlock additional savings, and strengthen long-term supplier partnerships to drive sustained value.
ServiceNow Supplier Lifecycle Operations was a game-changer.

ODS helped us cut supplier onboarding time by 50%, and we’ve built better partnerships thanks to stronger collaboration with key suppliers."

Prasad K, Director of Sourcing

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TESTIMONIALS

What Clients Say About Us

  • 200% Return on Investment
Disconnected visibility prevented us from taking advantage of volume purchase opportunities. Our team was also wasting 20% of their time on unfunded requests. On top of that, we were paying maintenance on expired infrastructure. We identified savings in the first 12 months that provided us with over 200% Return on Investment!
  • Reduced Efforts by 80%
We no longer blindly overspend our budgets because we have current information at our fingertips; we know what was approved, what has been committed, and our actual spend. After having the solution in place, our tracking efforts have been reduced by over 80%. In total, we've recovered the equivalent of 3 FTEs.
  • Doubled Team Productivity
We have a self-service portal so our consumers can view current status on-demand and make requests with real-time updates.
The level of trust between IT and the rest of the University increased overnight. Doubling the productivity of our teams while making our consumers happier made this a no-brainer.

Want to know your potential savings?

Only ODS has pre-built ROI estimators for the some of the strongest Source-to-Pay. savings categories

We provide our estimates free of charge with no strings attached to every ServiceNow customer.

We want to help them see why we believe Source-to-Pay is one of the smartest ways to maximize the value of ServiceNow