Purchase Workflows: Total Expert Case Study
Total Expert streamlines all purchases with Productiv workflows
Challenges
- Decentralized app management without visibility into usage or reasoning behind past decisions
- Lack of data for app owners to make informed decisions
- Siloed teams and manual processes slowed down renewals processes
Results
- $4.2 million in spend brought under management
- Time savings of 20% per renewal
- 15+ unmanaged apps identified
- 6 contracts consolidated
Total Expert enables modern financial institutions to engage and guide consumers through complex financial decisions by providing purpose-built tools that fuse digital communications and human interactions.
Why Total Expert chose Productiv:
The Total Expert team was looking for a solution to wrap their hands around Spend Management and get a handle on sprawling software costs. Without a designated Procurement team, IT and Finance leaders owned software purchases and renewals, but their processes were manual and inconsistent. Total Expert chose Productiv because the platform serves as a shared source of truth with automated and trustworthy data, integrates with their critical systems, and provides flexible, no-code workflows that are created in minutes.
Low-touch, data-backed procurement decisions — for all spend
Now, with increased visibility and trusted data, Total Expert could look for ways to streamline and standardize their procurement process for better business efficiency. Without a designated team in place, net new purchases and renewals were manual and time consuming. Productiv workflows help Total Expert determine their ideal order of operations and introduce automation to decrease manual steps and ensure that the right team is involved in the right moment. Already, the team has seen time spent on renewals decrease by 20%.
Creating custom no-code workflows in Productiv is fast and easy, and the two-way integrations are critical to continued adoption. Two of the most important integrations for Total Expert are IronClad and Slack, where their teams maintain executed contracts and communicate internally. When a renewal is coming up, Productiv automatically creates a Slack channel that brings all stakeholders together to make sure everyone has access to the information they need and no one misses a task.
With Productiv workflows, Total Expert was able to see rapid improvement and impact with software purchases, and ultimately expanded workflows beyond software alone, to non-software spending. Now, when employees want to request a contractor, equipment, or other purchase item, they know to kick off the process in Productiv. This has helped the Total Expert Finance and IT teams engage at the right points of the procurement process, maintain governance, and create a positive experience for their internal customers — the Total Expert Employees.
Streamlined cross-functional collaboration
A critical, underlying initiative for the Total Expert team when implementing Productiv was to create a system of ownership for all software. With the IT and Finance teams at capacity, they wanted each department leader to be responsible for the apps used by their team, while still maintaining governance over security and spend.
Productiv helped them achieve this by keeping historical records of all app owners and providing granular usage data to help teams align on decisions. Right away, access to this data helped the team align around consolidating 6 contracts, creating significant time and cost savings.
Looking ahead
Productiv has become an essential tool for Total Expert’s Spend Management strategy. By centralizing spend data, streamlining procurement processes, and strengthening cross-functional collaboration, they have seen impactful results.
Looking ahead, the team plans to funnel all purchase requests (software and non-software) through Productiv. The goal is to have every Total Expert employee be able to use Productiv as a self-service tool, so Finance and IT teams can maintain spend and security oversight, while reducing time spent on manual processes.
"Having all of the data from Productiv at my fingertips when approaching a renewals discussion with our CFO has made those conversations much more strategic because it instills confidence that we will make the right decision."