PROCUREMENT STRATEGY TECH & AI
ZYCUS & HEINEKEN
When Hervé Le Faou joined Heineken as Chief Procurement Officer in 2017, poor spend visibility was severely hampering the company’ s procurement performance across 80 markets, 160 breweries and 350 brands. Decentralised contract management and manual processes prevented effective spend analysis and negotiation outcomes.
Heineken’ s 2018 implementation of Zycus’ source-to-contract suite transformed spend management capabilities. The enhanced spend analytics provided unprecedented visibility, enabling the company to identify consolidation opportunities and redesign its supply base strategically. Standardised eSourcing and e-auction modules professionalised supplier selection processes.
The results were substantial: 2,000 sourcing events and 1,000 e-auctions delivered double-digit percentage savings.
A unified contract repository eliminated version confusion and ensured high adoption rates of newly negotiated agreements, minimising spend leakage.
By 2024, Heineken began leveraging agentic AI to further optimise spend management through automated negotiations with non-strategic suppliers, rapid access to market intelligence for better category strategies and improved stakeholder compliance to prevent maverick spending.
Hervé’ s advice for organisations seeking to improve spend management centres on establishing clear objectives, defining measurable savings KPIs, prioritising data standardisation and starting with pilots before scaling. He emphasises that whilst AI will revolutionise procurement, success requires talents who can effectively harness these technologies to drive spend optimisation.
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