When Stuart Wilson joined Symphony in November 2024 as Head of Procurement, requests moved through a patchwork of spreadsheets, inboxes, and chat groups, representing a big challenge for central coordination. With Stuart operating as a team of one and responsible for 600+ suppliers, he set his sights on solving three key challenges:

1) Fragmented application of the process

Policy was inconsistently applied depending on department and urgency. Purchases and contracts could bypass intended controls, and agreements could be signed by people without the right authorisation. With request and supplier context split across tools, it was easy for activity to slip outside the process.

2) Inconsistent, manual stakeholder involvement

Most requests needed input from legal, finance, InfoSec, and budget holders. But stakeholders were pulled in ad hoc via messaging groups and manual follow‑ups. There was no consistent routing, no clear “next owner,” and limited visibility into where a request was stuck — creating delays and rework.

3) Supplier management and renewals were fragmented

Supplier onboarding relied on manual collection of forms and details over email and in Word documents. Renewals were tracked in separate spreadsheets, with no reliable system to surface what was coming up and when action was needed, making auto-renewals a real risk.

Symphony needed a unified platform to coordinate stakeholders, capture supplier context, and manage renewals proactively—without adding headcount.

“The process existed, but it wasn’t consistently followed. Stakeholders were involved manually and inconsistently, and supplier and renewal information lived across spreadsheets — which made it hard to control spend and stay ahead of deadlines.” Stuart Wilson, Head of Procurement.

The requirements for an intake to procure platform were to:

• Centralise procurement coordination so work couldn’t disappear into chats and spreadsheets.
  
• Ensure the right teams were brought in at the right time (legal, finance, InfoSec, and approvers).
  
• Create clear ownership and status visibility across every request.
  
• Reduce manual coordination of supplier onboarding and signatures.
  
• Improve renewal management so procurement could act early, not react late.

After evaluating the market Stuart chose Omnea to act as a system of record for intake, approvals, and supplier management. After a 10 week deployment, Omnea now additionally orchestrates the tools stakeholders already used:

• SAP Concur integration: vendor setup became a practical control point. If a supplier isn’t correctly set up, invoices can’t be processed through the finance flow — forcing exceptions back into a managed process rather than letting them slip through.
  
• Jira integration for InfoSec: security reviews still happen in the team’s existing ticketing workflow, but Omnea captures the procurement context and links tickets back to the supplier and request.
  
• DocuSign integration: eliminates the “handoff chain” where procurement and other teams manually sent contracts out for signature and then re-uploaded executed versions.‍
• Netsuite integration: creates supplier records as part of workflows, eliminating manual data transfer.

“I needed something that would help the business stay agile without cutting corners. Omnea creates the structure needed to manage requests, approvals, and supplier onboarding, without relying on manual chasing.” Stuart Wilson, Head of Procurement.

1) Visibility and control: procurement work is trackable end-to-end

With Omnea coordinating the workflow, Symphony now has a clear view of:

• Who owns the next step
  
• Whether the blocker is internal or external
  
• The full request history, attached context, and approvals

This has also strengthened day-to-day governance. If someone asks about a supplier, Stuart can quickly trace the history and rationale without chasing down owners.

2) Renewals management: acting earlier to avoid auto-renew surprises

A key early win came from building visibility into renewals and contract timelines.

By uploading and organising contract data in Omnea (including a large historic set of contracts and renewals), Stuart could flag priority renewals early and start negotiations well before deadlines.

That proactive approach directly drove significant commercial impact as Stuart was able to pre-negotiate renewals well in advance and terminate multiple contracts that may have been missed by the business—made possible because renewal visibility was no longer trapped in spreadsheets and institutional memory.

3) Reduced manual handoffs across teams, especially around signatures

DocuSign integration removed a common friction point:

• Before: procurement → other team → DocuSign send → returned contract → manual upload to shared drive
  
• After: a streamlined flow inside Omnea, reducing coordination effort and keeping executed contracts attached to the supplier record
  

The benefit is speed and auditability. Contract context stays with the request rather than being reconstructed later.

4) Rogue spend is harder to hide

By linking the process to finance controls, Symphony reduced the likelihood that spend bypasses procurement entirely.

When invoices appear without a vendor properly set up, finance flags it back to Stuart — forcing a procurement-managed onboarding step rather than letting the invoice proceed unmanaged.

“Nothing can be hidden under the carpet. It all has to come through Omnea, which equates to more control, and greater opportunity for commercial impact.” Stuart Wilson, Head of Procurement.