{Startup watch: Avaali Solutions} ‘We are helping enterprises build resilience, reduce costs and risks via digital’

This Bangalore-based company has enabled over 120 large enterprises to bring down their costs by as much as 15-20% in addition to bringing down their process cycle time between 35-50%.

Organizations around the world have increasingly been tightening their leash on costs and keen focus on profitability. More so with COVID-19. Procurement costs are the major elements in overall costs in any P&L. While bringing down direct material procurement costs have always been a keen focus, the share of indirect spends to revenue could be as high as 15% to 30%. Bringing down indirect spends is another huge focus for enterprises.

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A significant way to bring down procurement costs is to leverage digital. Via digital, enterprises not only have early visibility to potential leakages and risks but are also able to accelerate the process cycle time and manage their inventories in a much tighter manner.

Avaali Solutions works with large enterprises to bring down their procurement costs via digital technologies. They have enabled over 120 large enterprises to bring down their costs by as much as 15-20% in addition to bringing down their process cycle time between 35-50%.

The Tech Panda spoke to Srividya Kannan, Founder, Director of Avaali Solutions, about their journey.

Enterprises had to transition to remote work almost overnight due to the lockdown. Document centric processes such as in procurement and supply chain were required to be transitioned to remote teams without disruption. Enterprises realized that digitalization and automation is going to be a necessity and no longer just nice to have

“We are helping enterprises build resilience, reduce costs and risks via digital. Our engagements have helped enterprises to reduce cycle time to process by over 35% and thereby accelerate their pace to business,” she says.

“Enterprises had to transition to remote work almost overnight due to the lockdown. Document centric processes such as in procurement and supply chain were required to be transitioned to remote teams without disruption. Enterprises realized that digitalization and automation is going to be a necessity and no longer just nice to have. Our engagements have helped enterprises enable this transition in an accelerated pace,” she adds.

The Avaali Way

With a deep understanding of operational processes, including sourcing, procurement, supply chain, contracts and legal as well as the finance and accounting areas, Avaali uses a confluence of technologies such as OCR, RPA, AI Chatbot, Workflow automation, Digital signature to enable process automation. They have executed various shared service automation initiatives to help enterprises bring down the cost of their shared service processes by over 35%-50%.

Their product, the Velocious Source to Pay platform enables superior supplier collaboration and reduced cost of sourcing and procurement

Their product, the Velocious Source to Pay platform enables superior supplier collaboration and reduced cost of sourcing and procurement. Replete with features such as e-auctions, dynamic discounting, purchase order release, and invoice receipt, advance shipment notifications, the solution seamlessly integrates with packaged applications for invoice processing as well as leading ERPs, thereby enabling full scale automation of the process.

Origin

Kannan founded the company in January 2013. She comes with significant experience across functions such as finance, innovation, technology sales, legal, alliances and channels, and business operations. Prior to founding Avaali, she has held senior positions in various large tech firms such as SAP, Oracle, and Wipro.

I am in my best flow when I work on turning around a dysfunctional area or when I set up something new

The vision behind the company is to support in the creation of a connected enterprise where information and networks are highly leveraged to drive profitable revenue growth.

“I am in my best flow when I work on turning around a dysfunctional area or when I set up something new. In my various interactions with large enterprises, I was excited with the huge opportunity to reduce operational costs via digital. This led to the formation of Avaali,” she recalls.

Growth Story

Avaali has delivered over 120 transformations across Asia and MEA. Their engagements have resulted in procurement cost reduction by over 12%-15% together with cycle time reduction of over 35%-50%. Their platform helps process over 10 million plus invoices.

We have deep functional expertise on shared service processes. This when coupled with a strong understanding of various emerging technologies, our unique implementation methodology and ability to support customers with post go-live adoption leads to delivering a compelling value for our customers

“We have deep functional expertise on shared service processes. This when coupled with a strong understanding of various emerging technologies, our unique implementation methodology and ability to support customers with post go-live adoption leads to delivering a compelling value for our customers. We have delivered some of the largest and most complex automation projects in the procure to pay arena for large enterprises,” says Kannan.

Future Plans

The company is coming up with solutions that will enable more effective working capital management and optimizing inventories. Their next generation dynamic discounting solution will help customers to bring down their procurement cost by at least 8-10%.

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“Our investments continue to stay strong in automating the procurement and supply chain process for our customers. Our continuous innovations in our supplier collaboration platform will deliver superior incremental returns for our customers,” Kannan explains.

“We are investing in more meaningful and long-term engagements with our enterprise customers with the objective of supporting them with margin improvements via digital. We are also investing in increasing our share of wallet in other geographies such as MEA and Europe,” she concludes.