From weeks to seven minutes: How BT Sourced and Candex redefine tail spend

When BT Sourced’s procurement team took a closer look at tail spend, they found an ideal partner in Candex, aligned in their focus on simplicity and speed. Together, they’ve made buying, paying, and partnering smoother and more efficient, replacing complexity with digital ease. CPOstrategy took a chair with Diarmuid O’Donoghue, Head of the Digital Procurement Garage at BT Sourced, and Jeremy Lappin, Co-founder and CEO of Candex, to find out more…

Diarmuid O’Donoghue is Head of the Digital Procurement Garage at BT Sourced and his remit is clear: digitise procurement for one of the world’s most iconic technology companies. “My role involves scouting, piloting and implementing technologies across our ecosystem,” he reveals. “BT Sourced was set up to revolutionise how we do procurement. Building trust was vital – not just with our stakeholders, but with our suppliers too.”

When BT Sourced decided to reimagine how procurement operated across its global business, one of the earliest challenges it tackled was tail spend – that long, tangled list of low-value suppliers that quietly eats up time, energy and resources. This motivation led BT Sourced to Candex. “Tail spend management is messy,” O’Donoghue recalls. “It isn’t a true enabler for the business. We had thousands of small suppliers making up a small percentage of spend. We needed a solution that was compliant, simple for our users and global in nature. Candex ticked every box.”

A startup’s breakthrough

Since its founding in 2011, Candex has been redefining how enterprises manage their long tail of suppliers. What began as a solution to procurement’s long-standing challenge – handling countless small, low-value transactions – has evolved into a trusted platform for the Global 2000 that makes it effortless for companies to buy from any supplier, anywhere. Behind the vision are Co-founders Jeremy Lappin, CEO, and Shani Vaza-Wahrmann, Chief R&D Officer, who set out to bring simplicity and speed to every supplier relationship.

“We were out there hustling,” recalls Candex CEO and Co-Founder Jeremy Lappin. “We met with executives, searching for those first pilot partners who could help us prove the technology’s value. To BT Sourced’s credit, they’re an innovative team, and they recognised the potential and had the courage to take a chance on us.” Read the full story here!