Despite a time of economic instability with headlines depicting a grim global economy plagued with debt crises, financial volatility, and lower commodity prices, Investco has continued to sustain its competitive advantage in hedge fund management. Similar investment companies recorded portfolio losses, while Investco experienced unprecedented growth, expanding its client roster, maintaining and improving historical returns, and substantially increasing the number of its personnel during this period.

Although Investco retained a competitive advantage, the company was growing organically faster than internal processes could adapt to scale and new demands. This growth challenge was exacerbated by the current procurement practices which varied by business unit with limited enterprise-wide standards or policy. Lengthy cycle times and redundant activities were common across the procurement to pay cycle as a result of this rapid growth and nonstandardized approach. Adding to the challenge, the existing procurement tool, a custom-developed solution, was inflexible and inefficient. While the tool was fixed and rigid, individual business unit processes and approaches were not. Some business units used purchase orders, where others did not. Each business unit had a variety of process and review steps for purchasing goods and services. The legal review process for contracts was not differentiated or scalable based on type of purchase, and the review steps were not consistently applied. Spend authorization thresholds were low relative to the large number of purchases at a smaller dollar value and had not been adjusted to reflect growth. For example, a $50 software license renewal went through the same review stages (technology, legal, and sourcing) as a one-off $100,000 specific piece of IT equipment. Investco’s existing tool did not have workflow capabilities that would meet the new needs of the business, and concerns existed regarding scalability. The inflexible workflow issues combined with poorly designed process also led to late engagement of the required reviewers. For example, a purchase would frequently go through sourcing or contract review before technology review.

The impact of these inefficient processes was being felt as a constraint to leveraging third party goods and services to support firm growth. When the firm identified a need for a new procurement software tool to address these constraints, KPMG was chosen to assist Investco with the selection of the tool and the initial design of the new procurement solution.