Ameresco and Ivalua: Reducing Supplier Onboarding from 6 Weeks to 48 Hours

Industry:

Construction & Real Estate, Energy & Utilities

Headquarters:

Framingham, Massachusetts

Website:

ameresco.com

About Ameresco

Ameresco, Inc. is a leading energy infrastructure solutions provider dedicated to helping customers reduce costs, enhance resilience, and decarbonize to Net Zero in the global energy transition. Their comprehensive portfolio includes implementing smart energy efficiency solutions, upgrading aging infrastructure, and developing, constructing, and operating distributed energy resources.

Challenges

Operational Blind Spots: High-risk, non-compliant, and underperforming suppliers were often not detected until they were already on-site.
Manual Onboarding Bottlenecks: Onboarding relied entirely on Word documents and manual H&S/Finance reviews, stretching the process out to 4–6 weeks.
Systemic Rigidity: Previous procurement tools were “black box” systems that offered no control or flexibility to the procurement team, forcing the business to adapt to the software rather than the other way around.

Benefits

Drastic Efficiency Gains: Transitioning to an online onboarding system reduced the process from weeks to just 24–48 hours for urgent requests.
Centralized Compliance: Seamless documentation submission allows internal Health & Safety and Finance teams to approve suppliers directly online, ensuring ISO 9001 standards are met.
Scalable Supplier Visibility: A “single view” of the supplier base now provides the agility to quickly find additional resources and expand rapidly as new renewable energy projects are won.

Solutions Selected

Supplier Risk & Performance

Sourcing

Contract Management

eProcurement

Intake Management

Invoicing

Payments

Spend Analysis

The old process was a Word document system… it could take anything up to four to six weeks [to onboarding a supplier]. By using Ivalua, we can now turn something around in 24 to 48 hours.