BGIS adopts procurement ecosystem model to improve compliance and advance social procurement

BGIS is a global facilities and asset management company with APAC operations spread across six locations, managing thousands of customer sites. BGIS is focused on delivering innovative service solutions that create value for their clients and the communities they operate in.

Background

BGIS has over 1,400 employees in the APAC region. To ensure efficient use of procurement resources, operational staff are able to source quotes and proposals directly from suppliers, in line with company policy. Quality and reputation are critical to BGIS, who must ensure their suppliers are qualified, fully insured, and financially solvent. The procurement team uses Avetta to manage supplier compliance in areas including health, safety, and sustainability.

Avetta is a cloud-based platform used globally to minimise supply chain risk by making contractor prequalification manageable and efficient. Their managed-service module distinguished Avetta when BGIS was evaluating compliance solutions.

With Avetta successfully implemented, Procurement Director Brian Peirce began sourcing the market for a sourcing platform to replace manual go-to-market processes.

Future-proofing the Digital Roadmap

As part of their procurement transformation, BGIS required a sourcing tool that would give them control and visibility over their long-tail operational spend. eSourcing tools offered as part of ERPs or end-to-end procurement suites lacked the depth and flexibility Brian saw in specialised solutions like Unimarket (formerly VendorPanel).

He explains, “Agility is important, but it’s hard to achieve with ERPs that require a lot of implementation effort and are less able to respond to new technology. Organisations need to be able to make decisions that reflect the evolving nature of business.”

Scott Spencer, SVP of Global Sales for Avetta, agrees: “Many tech companies are unwilling to collaborate, whereas we — and Unimarket — believe that open architecture is critical for progress. It enables our clients to drive more value from their data.”

Selecting Unimarket

As an open API platform, Unimarket integrates seamlessly with the systems BGIS already uses, including Avetta and enterprise solution Manhattan. The Source-to-Contract platform specialises in supplier discovery, management, and sourcing, and “has enough capability to manage tenders and multiple-party evaluations — all the things you expect from a major ERP, but it’s so much easier to use,” says Brian.

He continues, “It’s a bouncing-ball methodology — you just follow the steps. A quick purchase can be handled without training for people with a basic level of IT capability.”

The core drivers for BGIS were compliance and transparency — both delivered by Unimarket. “Unimarket is the first line of defence against fraud and non-compliance. We now have visibility across all our sourcing events and auditable records and data.”

Empowering Buyers to Do the Right Thing

By connecting sourcing (Unimarket) with supplier compliance (Avetta), BGIS significantly improved the user experience for decentralised buyers. Instead of switching systems to view supplier accreditations, all compliance information is visible at the point of supplier discovery in Unimarket.

The data flows securely from Avetta and is displayed as badges so buyers can instantly identify compliance status. Brian notes, “The integration was very straightforward, and it’s now easier for our buyers to do the right thing and harder for them to do the wrong thing.”

Advancing Social Procurement

Procurement plays an important role in BGIS’ Reconciliation Action Plan and Disability Engagement & Inclusion Plan. Brian extended the same integration capability to badge social enterprise suppliers — including Social Traders and BuyAbility organisations — making them easy to identify within the Marketplace.

“Our principle is to nominate social badges as preferences so that social suppliers appear at the top of the search, alongside our existing suppliers and prequalified suppliers,” Brian says. Making these suppliers more visible will help BGIS achieve its ambitious social procurement targets.

This integrated procurement ecosystem will not only improve the buyer experience, compliance, and social outcomes, but also enhance the quality and flow of data, enabling smarter decisions and deeper insights for the BGIS procurement team.