Connecting SaaS products to ERP with Eversource’s eProcurement solution

There is much talk about how Saas solutions can provide quick, cost-effective solutions for various challenges across your organization. The solutions work best when integrated with your ERP system – easier to achieve when the initiatives involve your ERP specialists. Endeavour have teamed up with Eversource, offering a seamless customer experience for your non-trade procurement.

Supercharge your ERP with SaaS products

ERP systems are the structural backbone and brain of your organization, crucial for integrating various business processes. To extend their capabilities—think of adding a “bionic arm” to your system—specialised SaaS (Software as a Service) plugins can be integrated to tackle specific challenges like ecommerce, communication, marketing automation, and e-procurement.

Key Benefits of SaaS Plugins for ERP Systems:

Cost Efficiency: SaaS plugins operate on a subscription basis, offering a cost-effective model, lowering upfront costs and includes support and maintenance.
Scalability: SaaS plugins to meet changing business needs, supporting growth and adaptation with minimal disruption.
Seamless Integration: Designed for compatibility, SaaS plugins integrate effortlessly with existing ERP systems, enhancing functionality without requiring significant changes to your core setup.
Vertical expertise: Get a solution that meets your industries specific problems without capital spend.
Focus on Core Business: Utilize SaaS plugins to concentrate on core business activities, minimizing the time and resources spent on developing and maintaining software functionalities.

SaaS plug-ins offer a flexible, cost-effective, and scalable way to enhance ERP systems, providing access to advanced features while reducing the burden of maintenance and support.

Streamline processes with eProcurement

In the world of procurement, embracing Software as a Service (SaaS) can transform traditional practices by addressing inefficiencies, enhancing visibility, and simplifying integrations. Teams continue to be held back by manual procurement processes, with emails and spreadsheets causing issues in compliance and reporting.

Key benefits to eProcurement:

Supplier and Purchase Order Management: Streamline supplier ordering and automate purchase orders to reduce errors and speed up approvals.
Spend and Catalogue Analysis: Utilise data to identify cost-saving opportunities and maintain optimal supplier contracts, getting the right products to your team.
Contract and Budget Management: Automate contract creation and track budget compliance to manage financial operations efficiently and monitor key financial milestones.
Risk and Invoice Management: Mitigate procurement risks and automate invoice processing to enhance security and ensure accurate financial reconciliation.
Enhanced Supplier Collaboration: Improve real-time communication with suppliers to facilitate smoother negotiations and quicker resolution of issues.

Integrating these SaaS solutions across various procurement functions dramatically enhances operational efficiency and compliance, streamlining essential business processes.

How Eversource improved procurement across 150 Hotels

Eversource have proven experience improving procurement processes with their Marketplace and Comms Centre solutions and know-how, implemented with leading NZ and Australian businesses, such as Lion, Fonterra, The Warehouse Group and NZ Government Agencies.

The Eversource marketplace product connects your suppliers with your team to purchase at your prices. The solution implemented with your branding, for maximum uptake, fitting within your internal solutions. Eversource integrates into top ERP systems, such as Microsoft BC and MYOB Acumatica, giving greater visibility across activity performed outside your ERP system. Eg Non-trade and indirect
sourcing, marketing activity and consumables.

Eversource are a New Zealand based team passionate about improving how technology enables procurement practices in multi-branch organisations.

Eversource successfully implemented their marketplace product with Choice Hotels across 150 franchisees, empowering their team to order, receipt goods and invoice with suppliers, all in one product.

Choice Hotels are a large global hotel group, with nearly 7,500 hotels globally, representing nearly 630,000 rooms, in 46 countries and territories. Choice Australia manages150 hotels as part of the global group.

Choice Hotels analysed supplier purchasing across the group and discovered significant variations in pricing for critical goods within the hotels, including beds, room supplies and marketing collateral. An obvious solution would be to negotiate group wide products and pricing with suppliers for franchises to buy. However, getting franchisees to buy what head office sets is never that easy.

Franchises often opted to order directly from suppliers, a necessary move to accelerate the ordering process under the franchise model. This independence, however, meant collective pricing agreements were sometimes overlooked—no fault of the franchises, but rather a gap in a unified procurement solution.

This is common across all multi-branch business, such as distributed teams, associations, retail and aged-living.

In collaboration with Eversource, Choice Hotels implemented their tailored online marketplace, designed to offer an easy-to-use, online shopping-like experience for franchisees to order directly from suppliers. By integrating directly with suppliers, Eversource ensures that the correct products are purchased at the right prices. The system also updates catalogues and prices in real-time, managing all suppliers in one unified shopping cart to streamline receipting of goods and invoice matching.

Hotel owners embraced the simple online interface, shedding the cumbersome manual processes of spreadsheets and emails. They appreciate receiving products at lower prices without the hassle of paperwork.

The head office team has been equally pleased with the real-time reporting and compliance monitoring. For example, when Choice Hotels decided to phase out single-use soap bottles to reduce their environmental impact, the Eversource marketplace informed franchises six months in advance, ensuring a smooth transition to reusable dispensers. This change not only helped meet their ESG goals
sooner but also saved money by avoiding incorrect product purchases.

Most Choice Hotels franchises are Mom and Pop owners, passionate about delivering a great service and growing their business. They hate spending their nights on supplier ordering admin. Eversource removes this task, giving them their life back. While head-office love the compliance.

Previously, collecting accurate rebate data required head office staff to contact each supplier individually—a time-consuming and error-prone process. Eversource now delivers real-time spend reports across the franchise group, significantly reducing the administrative burden and improving rebate accuracy.

Supplier management continues to evolve, with constant changes in products and pricing. Our Communications Centre complements the marketplace by keeping procurement teams and franchisees informed about upcoming changes, enhancing the relationship between businesses and suppliers and promoting local suppliers within the group.

Choice Hotels is actively engaged in improving our platform, incorporating predictive ordering and AIdriven solutions that integrate with existing ERP systems. This technology matches business demand with historical ordering data to automate procurement, ensuring the right products are purchased at the optimal time.

Partnership with Endeavour

Endeavour are pleased to partner with Eversource, extending our ERP solutions to include the specialist capabilities of their marketplace and other applications within their software suite. Leveraging the combined extensive experience in ERP implementation, the team are set to bring enhanced procurement solutions to your business.

Connect with your Endeavour to see how Eversource could help your supply chain, and hear more client stories from Lion, Sudima Hotels and NZ Blood Services.