EIT Food is a leading European organization dedicated to driving innovation in the food sector. By funding transformative projects, it fosters collaboration between startups, established businesses, universities, and consumers. The organization empowers entrepreneurs with essential skills and strengthens the connection between consumers and their food sources, shaping a more resilient and transparent food system. With 400 employees, EIT Food operates on a foundation of strict financial regulations that ensure transparency and compliance in its procurement processes.
Industry:
Food
Employees:
400
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"Pivot drastically streamlined our information processing, removing the administrative burden and saving valuable time"
Nicolas Perrin
Chief Financial Officer
,
EIT Food
The problem: An Inefficient Procurement Process
The existing process was heavily administrative and did not add value, yet full transparency and traceability were necessary to meet European legal requirements. As a public organization, every purchase required an official order without exception, ensuring accountability and financial control. However, managing a large number of suppliers and purchase orders each month created additional complexity, making the process cumbersome and time-consuming.
One of the major pain points was the lack of visibility.
Without a user-friendly dashboard, employees struggled to track purchases, while manual workflows increased the burden on the accounting team. Compliance was another major concern. Strict European regulations dictated that every transaction meet legal requirements, and without a streamlined process, ensuring this compliance was an ongoing struggle. Budget transparency was also problematic.
The absence of a clear link between purchase orders and invoices led to mismatches, making it difficult to monitor spending accurately. Furthermore, the reliance on manual processes slowed operations and introduced errors. Invoice matching was done using Excel sheets, increasing the risk of mistakes and consuming valuable time.
The need for a solution that would eliminate inefficiencies and simplify procurement was clear.
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The Solution: A Simpler and More Transparent Procurement System
To address these challenges, EIT Food adopted Pivot, a Source-to-Pay platform designed to centralize and streamline processes. With an intuitive and flexible system, administrative workload was significantly reduced, allowing teams to focus on strategic priorities rather than tedious manual tasks. The impact of this transition was immediate.
The onboarding of suppliers via an online vendor portal enhanced supplier management, providing better visibility and control. Centralization of procurement operations allowed invoices to be tracked more easily through a unified dashboard. Automation replaced time-consuming manual tasks, accelerating the creation and approval of purchase requests while maintaining full traceability. The ability to monitor approvals and confirm that all invoices were linked to valid purchase orders ensured compliance with European regulations. The system’s intuitive interface required minimal training, allowing employees to adapt quickly and work more efficiently.
The results: Increased Efficiency, Transparency, and Satisfaction
EIT Food achieved several key improvements in its procurement process. Supplier management strengthened with better visibility through the vendor portal’s supplier onboarding. Centralization brought greater oversight, allowing invoices to be easily tracked through a unified dashboard.
Automation replaced time-consuming manual tasks, streamlining the creation and approval of purchase requests. Full traceability was established, ensuring teams could monitor approvals and confirm that all invoices had valid purchase orders. The user experience also improved, with minimal training required, intuitive dashboards, and automated workflows reducing complexity. As a result, processes became faster, more transparent, and more efficient.
Pivot played a key role in streamlining procurement by addressing challenges through automation, centralization, and flexibility. As a unified intake system, it captures and processes all purchase requests in one place, enhancing the efficiency of the Procure-to-Pay process. Its user-friendly interface allows for quick workflow adjustments, ensuring adaptability to evolving business needs.
The impact on the company has been significant, with strong user adoption and improved procurement tracking, particularly in purchase order monitoring and invoice matching. Invoice management is now more transparent and efficient. A major advantage of Pivot is its rapid implementation and immediate impact, delivering fast time-to-value at no additional cost. By integrating Pivot, EIT Food eliminated inefficiencies, reduced administrative burdens, and strengthened compliance, allowing teams to focus on strategic, high-value work.