Turning 20 years of procurement expertise into a B2B SaaS product
About the client
Progressio is a consultancy firm with over 20 years of deep procurement expertise. When advising their clients on digital solutions to implement in their procurement processes, they noticed a need for a pragmatic tendering platform for mid-sized companies without tedious implementation trajectories and at reasonable cost.
The challenge
They decided to create a new SaaS product called Valcori, a point solution for digital tendering. Starting from a blank whiteboard, we jointly embarked on an intense trajectory connecting all the dots from the product strategy and ideation towards the go-to-market.
Our approach
We started off by mapping out the core workflows between buyers and suppliers in typical tendering journeys. We formalised the functional requirements and drew out a cloud architecture with the foundations to scale. We then brought a dedicated product engineering team together with people from both sides to build the platform.
With support of
Shaping a frictionless procurement journey
Since every company has slightly different procurement processes, our first challenge was to identify the functional common denominators across 100+ example RFI's and RFQ's and formalise this into an intuitive, user experience.
At the same time we drew out the cloud architecture diagrams with the necessary technical components.
Design track
We drew out wireframes and validated the original assumptions with potential users. All user flows were turned into clickable prototypes detailing the specific business logic.
Architecture track
We opted for Google Cloud Platform infrastructure and defined an API-driven architecture that would be able to connect to external ERP or accounting systems.
Building the product with scalability in mind
We gathered a dedicated team of software engineers that focused on turning the Google Cloud Platform architecture into functioning software consisting of REST APIs and a React front-end application. We set up efficient ci/cd pipelines with extensive automated test coverage, security checks and continuous monitoring tooling to spot possible errors or performance issues proactively.
We facilitated the development team to move fast under the guidance of a product manager and engineering manager. We were proud to launch the fist version of Valcori within 6 months after the initial conception.
Supporting Valcori with the commercial roll-out
Next to continuous support with the cloud infrastructure, we're helping the Valcori team in setting up a customer success model, billing operations, legal documentation and the basis for their ISMS (Information Security Management System).
Valcori is actively going to market as a B2B SaaS product targeted at mid-to-large sized companies. We are making sure that the platform has the right technical and operational foundations to scale into the millions of users.
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With our vast experience in the procurement industry, we knew exactly what we wanted to build but not how to get there. The Panenco team served as an entrepreneurial partner throughout this whole journey from ideation towards production.
Stef Brismoutier
Managing Director Progressio
In summary
Progressio approached us with a very ambitious plan: building a B2B product from scratch in an industry that is fairly resistant to change. Thanks to our methodological approach we were able to turn their knowhow into a SaaS product loved by thousands of users.
We're truly proud of this achievement and thankful to our partner Progressio for the productive cooperation and trust. Excited to keep shaping and building a digital future for the procurement industry.
Let's build!
Are you looking for an entrepreneurial digital partner?
Reach out to hello@panenco.com.
