The Challenge

Allison Thompson and her team at Public were struggling with an inefficient vendor management system. The company had redundant tools, no centralized database & process for vendor spend, and lacked the time to manage their existing vendors effectively. As the Head of Strategic Finance, her goal was clear: achieve a 20% increase in spending efficiency. Public’s current tools were falling short, leaving her team frustrated and without the comprehensive data they needed.

Initially, Public relied on a different spend management tool that focused on negotiation as a service. It seemed promising at first, but as Allison described, “It felt like a leaky bucket.” It couldn’t support all of their vendors, lacked the technology to provide a complete picture of their vendor data, and their incentives were misaligned with Public’s.

After terminating their agreement with their previous tool, the team temporarily resorted to using Google Forms and Google Sheets. This makeshift solution was far from ideal. It lacked the necessary functionality and automation for effective vendor management. Steve Nolan, Senior Manager of Accounting at Public, elaborated: "We had two separate sheets for different vendor types. It was clunky, time-consuming and increased the potential for errors in financial reporting."

The Search for a Solution

Public needed more than just a workaround; they needed a comprehensive solution. The team was searching for a collaborative tool that would standardize their purchasing and renewal process while delivering a complete, accurate, and real-time view of all vendor data. BRM emerged as the clear choice, offering the unified "system of truth" that Public required.

To Public, BRM wasn’t just another spend management tool. As Allison put it, “BRM is like looking through the front windshield, while spend management is like looking through the rearview mirror.” With its forward-looking capabilities and seamless integrations, BRM was easy to deploy and immediately began delivering value. Within no time, BRM became a cornerstone of Public’s operations.

Using BRM: Centralized Vendor Management

Today, BRM is the backbone of Public's purchasing and vendor management processes. Employees across the organization rely on BRM as their go-to platform for all purchasing and renewal activities. Through integrating directly with NetSuite, Okta, Brex, Google SSO, Gmail, and HiBob, BRM provides a centralized, real-time source of truth for vendor spend and contract status. 

Steve shared, "BRM's request tool is heavily utilized across the company. It's made financial reporting easier, and we prefer it over NetSuite for certain tasks, like vendor contract retrieval and status checks (about a purchase/renewal request)."

Automatic Contract Discovery & Extraction

One of the game changers for Public is BRM’s Contract Collector. BRM's automagical email-based contract discovery and extraction tool. Instead of executed contracts getting lost in inboxes and shared drives, Contract Collector finds, analyzes, and extracts critical data from vendor contracts within minutes of signature. Steve noted that “now [our contract process] is completely automated – I don't have to worry about it. It just flows from our contract inbox to BRM – that was a magical moment when we set that up.”

Data gathering & insights for Legal and Compliance 

The Legal and Compliance teams have seen a significant transformation with BRM. Previously bogged down by manual work - reading through privacy policies and legal agreements - these teams now save time with automated data extraction. Additionally, because BRM automatically stores all vendor agreements, the legal & finance teams can quickly find the information they are looking for.

AI-Driven Vendor Management 

Because BRM's AI functionality is deeply integrated into the product, context about vendors is only a chat away. Whenever Allison wants to check the status of a renewal, she simply asks BRM via Slack and receives an instant update. This level of convenience and real-time access to information has been a game-changer for Public, saving time and reducing the need for manual follow-ups.

The Results

The transition to BRM has yielded significant benefits for Public. Allison was initially skeptical when BRM was described as "automagical," but she quickly realized it wasn't a sales pitch—the tool truly delivers. Stakeholders now save valuable time, accessing updates and contract details without the need for cumbersome manual follow-ups.

Perhaps most importantly, BRM has been instrumental in helping Public achieve their goal of 20% cost reduction. Steve emphasized, "BRM provides full visibility into organizational spend. The moment I log in, I have immediate access to expense data and tools for analyzing spend." With centralized, easily accessible data, the team makes informed decisions during vendor renewals, leading to better outcomes and more cost-effective agreements.

As Steve summed it up, "What the BRM team has built is one million times better than our previous systems. It's truly transformed how we manage our vendors, and control our costs."