“I think procurement is tired of acting as the human glue between all of these different systems. And I think they're ready to elevate themselves and to become more strategic.” - Ian Cotter, Co-founder, Zavo
Procurement teams have access to more technology than ever, yet getting a complete picture of a supplier relationship often requires searching across disconnected systems. As AI capabilities evolve, technology providers are looking for ways to bring that information together and help procurement make more informed commercial decisions.
In this ProcureTech Insider Provider of the Week episode, we speak with Ian Cotter, Co-founder of Zavo, formerly Valorant, about the company's evolution into an AI-native intake-to-pay platform, its vision for a centralized “procurement brain,” and the growing importance of forward-looking spend intelligence.
What is Zavo, and what problem are you trying to solve for procurement teams?
“At its core, Zavo is an AI-native intake-to-pay platform.
Our longer-term aspiration is to become the procurement brain. I think most organizations already have a lot of procurement technology. But from what we've seen in my two decades working with customers, a lot of the time those systems don't really talk to each other.
We're really trying to provide practitioners with one place where they can see the past, the present, and also recommendations on the future of what they should do with that supplier. That's our North Star for what we're looking to build.”
How does Zavo differentiate itself in an increasingly crowded procurement technology market?
“I actually feel a little sorry for buyers of procurement technology in the market at the minute, because it is very confusing.
I was talking to a few of our customers at a large procurement conference recently, and they said, ‘I'm more confused after spending two days here than before I came.’ Everyone kind of sounds the same, using the same language.
How we really differentiate ourselves is that, at our core, we're a company of procurement practitioners who have spent a long time in this space and really understand it.
Everything we're building, we're trying to solve real-life procurement problems. We're not just building a technology solution that looks good in a demo.”
Where does Zavo fit within an organization's existing procurement technology stack?
“You can always start small with us. You may already have some procurement technology. You may have a CLM, a sourcing platform, or a P2P platform.
What we normally can do is come in and sit on top of all of that, acting as a very easy-to-use interface to increase adoption. Think of it like a classic intake and orchestration platform.
What we've been seeing more lately, though, is that once clients start to use that, they become very comfortable with our platform. Then the discussion starts about whether they actually need some of the other procurement technology they have today, and it becomes a little bit more of a replacement story.
For smaller customers or more nascent procurement organizations, we can actually be their end-to-end stack for procurement, all the way from intake to pay.”
How could forward-looking spend intelligence change procurement's role in the business?
“Procurement has always been very good at telling you what we've spent in the past. They're very good at telling you how much we spent last year.
Now customers are asking us for better visibility into what they're going to be spending next year. We've tried to coin this phrase: forward spend intelligence.
I think this will be a bit of a game changer for a lot of procurement organizations because it will help procurement become more of a strategic advisor to the business.
Instead of just saying, ‘You spent this much last year,’ procurement will actually be able to provide some insights to the CFO's office and say, ‘There's a $15 million headwind coming next year which you might not be aware of.’
But also, we've got a plan in place to address some of that as well, to mitigate some of that.”
What do you think procurement professionals will expect from technology in the future?
“Procurement now is looking for the procurement brain. They want to have the full commercial picture of the relationships with the suppliers that they have.
I think they're sick and tired of going to five different systems to pull that information, or a lot of the time, that information living in people's heads.
They don't want to spend their time chasing. They don't want to spend their time gathering information. They want to be able to have all of that information at their fingertips to allow them to make better strategic commercial decisions.”