The second-annual AP Honors Ceremony celebrated the accounts payable profession and recognized excellence in the field. During the ceremony, Ardent Partners presented awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year — “The AP Honors” — to a variety of high achievers including Accounts Payable and P2P leaders and teams, as well as ePayables (AP Automation) solution providers and other experts.
Let’s look at the Best Technology Partnership award winner.
Best Technology Partnership: Presented to the best partnership between a solution provider and their accounts payable team customer on a technology deployment.
Company: Novartis is an innovative medicines company. Every day, it works to reimagine medicine to improve and extend people’s lives so that patients, healthcare professionals, and societies are empowered in the face of serious disease. Its medicines reached 296 million people worldwide.
Employees: Novartis — 80,000 people globally
Group Website: Novartis and ORO Labs
Key People: Piotr Pierzak, Head Demand 2 PO, Global Process Owner for Novartis, and Emily Rakowski, Chief Marketing Officer for ORO Labs
*All data given above is based on publicly available information.
Novartis and ORO Labs Partner Transform Supplier Management with Supplier 360
As the world’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical company (with a supplier base spanning more than 80,000 vendors), Novartis embarked on an ambitious transformational journey to streamline procurement and supplier management processes. Piotr Pierzak, Head Demand 2 PO, Global Process Owner for Novartis, said the journey was one that couldn’t be successful without ORO Labs as its innovative technology solution partner. The initiative began over two years ago to address vendor fraud in accounts payable (AP). By employing advanced fraud detection measures, including country-specific bank detail validations through trusted providers, Novartis successfully mitigated 20 fraud incidents, yielding a significant return on investment.
Building on this success, Pierzak remarked that the company shifted its attention to overhauling the entire supplier lifecycle management process. Legacy systems were phased out in favor of a solution called “Supplier 360,” which was developed using ORO’s no-code procurement orchestration platform and in collaborative partnership with the implementation team at ORO Labs. A cutting-edge application, the solution is designed to simplify supplier onboarding, risk screening, data management, and reporting. The initiative marks a significant departure from traditional enterprise solutions, such as SAP and Oracle, providing a tailored and agile approach to tackling the complexities of supplier data management in the pharmaceutical industry.
Pierzak envisioned the Supplier 360 platform as a centralized hub, likening it to “LinkedIn for suppliers,” where data is organized and workflows are optimized, enabling stakeholders to view all business partner hierarchies, manage data, and navigate processes with ease. The solution’s rollout began in the U.S. as a beta product and garnered interest from global pharmaceutical leaders like Roche and GSK. Novartis expanded the platform globally in 2024, aiming for a comprehensive “source-to-pay” orchestration layer by the end of 2025. This ambitious goal involves integrating 25 to 28 applications, creating a seamless experience from procurement to finance and accounts payable.
A 360-View of Supplier 360
Prior to the rollout of Supplier 360, Novartis relied on a highly manual system with frequent callbacks to suppliers, leading to inefficiencies and limited scalability. Through this collaboration, supplier callback rates have plummeted to around 2% to 3%, as the new system leverages advanced data intake, subscription models, and scoring mechanisms to verify data automatically. However, high-risk countries like China and regions with complex regulatory frameworks, such as Europe and the U.S., still require careful attention.
Emily Rakowski, Chief Marketing Officer for ORO Labs, said the solution orchestrates supplier onboarding and maintenance workflows in ways that are intuitive, adaptive, and fast. It is important to note that the solution changes the paradigm so that supplier management becomes driven more by the business user/relationship owner and then leverages data triggers to identify risk, bringing the right personnel from procurement, vendor management, risk management, finance, and third-party risk management (TPRM), into processes at key points, she said.
Supplier 360 shines in how it handles and understands very complex sets of heterogeneous and disparate data from across multiple ERPs and other systems, while essentially hiding that complexity from end users who don’t need to engage with it, Rakowski added. This handling of data reduces the burden on not just business users, but also data stewards and other teams who don’t need to read/memorize/follow a “playbook” that’s highly country specific.
Since the introduction of Supplier 360, Pierzak said transformative changes are occurring in supplier management. He noted several key features attributed to Supplier 360’s success.
Smart workflow: Supplier 360 incorporates advanced workflows that move beyond traditional, linear approval processes. Unlike standard workflows that route all approvals through a fixed sequence, Supplier 360 targets only the relevant personnel for specific tasks. For instance, a bank detail update bypasses procurement and goes directly to the risk or data stewardship teams. Embedded risk engines provide instant validation by leveraging external data sources, such as fraud detection tools and tax verification engines, to assess data authenticity. The system offers a risk score — low, medium, or high — along with tailored next steps, much like a credit scoring system in banking. By automating previous manual processes, Supplier 360 significantly reduces errors and speeds up decision-making.
Fraud prevention: With fraudsters becoming increasingly sophisticated, Supplier 360 focuses on robust authentication mechanisms. It verifies supplier identities using cutting-edge technology, such as facial recognition services and geolocation checks, ensuring every interaction is with legitimate entities. Additionally, the system detects potential fraud by monitoring contact details and payment information. For example, if an individual tries to update supplier details using a personal email domain, the system immediately flags it for review.
Streamlined supplier onboarding: The solution has reduced the supplier onboarding process from over 20 days to an average of six days, with a target of five days. The significant improvement is attributed to automation of risk assessments through a seven-pillar risk framework. Supplier 360 also integrates with OCR technology to extract data from contracts and documents seamlessly, while its flexible onboarding options — such as a mobile-friendly collaboration workspace — eliminates the need for a traditional supplier portal. By allowing businesses to manage onboarding offline or online, Supplier 360 democratizes decision-making and adapts to supplier preferences.
Improved communication: Unlike traditional platforms like SAP or Coupa, Supplier 360 enhances communication by addressing long-standing issues. Invitations are sent directly from the company’s domain (e.g., Novartis), ensuring they don’t end up in spam folders. Additionally, business requesters are Cc’d on supplier invites, ensuring transparency throughout the process.
A Vision for Simplified Supplier Management
Pierzak reiterated the criticality of Novartis’ adoption of a no-code procurement orchestration platform, allowing for greater agility and customization without heavy reliance on IT teams. However, the company also recognized that the true challenge lies not in the technology but in adapting organizational structures to fully utilize its capabilities. Traditional outsourcing practices, where IT services and application management are handled by third-party providers, present a significant barrier. Instead, Pierzak said that Novartis set out to build internal capabilities, fostering a product management mindset with agile methodologies, backlog planning, and continuous improvement cycles.
Convincing stakeholders to shift from entrenched practices to a more self-sufficient, technology-driven model required significant change management and cultural adaptation. Pierzak noted that even the most advanced technology is ineffective without a robust strategy to manage organizational change and align competencies. He said the journey highlights the importance of collaboration between technology providers and internal teams to ensure mutual understanding and alignment. ORO, as a key partner, has proven instrumental in helping Novartis address specific challenges in procurement and finance, paving the way for sustainable innovation.
A Paradigm Shift in Collaboration
The partnership between Novartis and ORO exemplifies a paradigm shift in how large enterprises work with startups. Instead of purchasing off-the-shelf solutions, Novartis engaged in co-designing a platform tailored to its unique requirements. This collaboration allowed both parties to innovate and address gaps left by traditional vendors. Pierzak also shared that startups like ORO, with their customer-focused and iterative development processes, challenge the dominance of established players like SAP and Oracle.
The journey to build the 360-degree solution has been a learning experience for Novartis. While challenges persist, the company believes in the value of investing in disruptive technologies and supporting innovative startups that aim to transform industries. As the system matures, Pierzak expects continued improvements in supplier data accuracy, fraud prevention, and user experience, setting a new benchmark for enterprise collaboration with startups. The partnership demonstrates that embracing agility, transparency, and innovation can yield significant operational and strategic benefits.
In the words of Pierzak: “Sometimes you find disruptors trying to change the world — let’s give them a chance.”
