A process too fragmented to govern
The Adecco Group operates across 60+ countries, with a procurement organization of around 300 supporting over 35,000 employees and 100,000 clients through local teams embedded in markets around the world. That scale is an asset and it was also the root of the problem. Distributed autonomy had produced distributed complexity: different markets, different entry points, different ways of working, with no common infrastructure. Procurement was operating locally but without the tooling to operate at scale. 

Work that lived in inboxes
Procurement requests arrived through every possible channel: emails, phone calls, informal messages, country-specific tools. The result was a function that couldn't see itself. There was no consolidated view of incoming demand, and no mechanism to identify where teams were overloaded or where bottlenecks were forming. Urgent requests were handled through direct conversations and email chains. Buying support happened but without a shared system to track it, measure it, or improve it. Leaders had a reactive view of volumes, response times and capacity, rather than forward-looking reporting.

Ten emails to learn what one form could have captured
Every new request triggered a requirements-gathering loop. At Adecco’s scale, no manually-managed triage system could absorb that volume. The answer had to be intelligent infrastructure. Country, business unit, timelines, supplier preference, budget context, regulatory constraints; none of it arrived at intake. Each conversation required 10 to 20 emails of back-and-forth clarification before procurement could even begin to progress the work. That friction had a compounding effect. Time was lost in rework. That friction added up. Business teams, under pressure to move quickly, would engage procurement late in the process, not out of disregard for policy, but because the infrastructure couldn’t support the pace the business was moving at.

Sixty countries, zero standard
Any fix had to work at scale — across multiple countries, entities, languages, and downstream systems — without forcing every market into a single rigid mould. That was the core design constraint. The problem wasn't just operational. It was structural: a global organization that had grown without a shared operating model for how people engaged procurement. And it couldn't be solved with policy. It had to be solved with infrastructure.

From a system of record to a system of intelligence 
The Adecco Group's ambition was clear from the start: build a procurement function that gets smarter with every request it handles. But intelligence at scale requires a foundation — a single, consistent way to capture demand before it can be understood, routed, and acted on. That meant standardization had to earn adoption across 60+ countries, not mandate it. The design principle was simple: make the right path the easiest path, and the data would follow.

A single intake layer, everywhere 
Omnea became the standardized entry point for all procurement requests: a consistent workflow deployed across countries and entities, creating a single system of record where none had existed at scale before. Adecco aligned teams around shared governance and a common operating model, not as a constraint but as the infrastructure that would make proactive procurement possible. The entry point was Teams: integrated directly into the tool employees already used, so the standard path required no behaviour change to find.

Localization as a change management strategy 
Global standardization without local fit fails every time. Adecco's rollout paired each market launch with dedicated enablement: an internal Omnea portal with guides, FAQs, and onboarding materials tailored by region; automated translation scaling the experience across seven languages; and clear communications that treated adoption as a people problem, not just a technology deployment. The result was a localized user experience that made the standard path feel native rather than imposed.

"This wasn't just a tool rollout. It was a serious shift in how the business engages procurement. Omnea gave us a single entry point, capable of conversational AI-intake that works across markets, supported by strong enablement and localization. Now we can see demand, manage capacity, and keep improving the process with better data."

‍Giulio Maccaroni, Head of Digital Procurement

Requirements captured once, reused everywhere 
When requirements arrive structured and complete, procurement teams shift from gathering information to applying judgement — engaging earlier on supplier strategy, commercial terms, and the decisions that actually move the needle. Omnea's AI assembles context at the point of submission, so every conversation starts ready to progress. That structured data compounds over time, feeding contracting, renewal management, and spend analytics without information being re-entered at every handoff. Each request becomes an input to a smarter system. Procurement moves from reacting to demand to understanding it.

"Most tools bolt AI on as a feature. With Omnea it's embedded in the process itself: flagging weak requests before they're submitted, surfacing existing suppliers before you go out to market, recommending how to improve forms based on what's actually slowing requests down. You feel it at every step."

Alex Pilsl, VP Procurement Strategy

AI embedded at every layer 
The shift from reactive to proactive procurement runs deeper than intake. Existing suppliers are surfaced automatically, reducing unnecessary new vendor introductions. Form recommendations identify where friction is slowing requests down and suggest improvements. Approval paths are predicted and routed intelligently, the right request reaches the right person without manual intervention. Beneath that sits a second layer for future improvement: agents that automate approval steps entirely where criteria are met, and that surface context and recommendations when human judgement is needed. The result is a procurement function where AI is handling the routine and sharpening the judgement calls. Not as a bolt-on, but as the operating logic of the platform itself.

Distributed work, unified data
Distributed teams don't have to mean distributed data. Adecco's procurement organization works the way modern teams do, across markets, time zones, and tools and that flexibility is a strength worth protecting. Omnea added a single lens across all tools: email threads, Teams conversations, and intake requests surfaced into one view, so the function could get a central view of its own demand, its performance, and improve in real time.

Cycle times cut by 80% in six months 
Overall cycle times fell from 23.4 days to 4.6 days, an 80% reduction in the first six months of deployment. New purchase requests dropped from 26.1 days to 5.5 days, a 79% improvement. These aren't optimisation metrics. They reflect a structural change: when requirements are captured at intake and routing is automatic, the team's energy goes to the work that matters rather than the work of coordination.

Sustained adoption, not a launch spike 
Omnea is now live in 22 markets, with continued usage growth that reflects genuine behaviour change rather than a one-time rollout effect. Critically, adoption didn't require teams to change how they collaborate — it gave them a shared layer on top of the tools they already use. The more markets that engage through the same system, the richer the demand signals become: patterns emerge, capacity becomes visible, and the function learns faster.

Earlier involvement, stronger governance 
With a single AI-intake pathway, procurement is engaged earlier, before decisions are locked and before commitments are made. That earlier involvement changes what procurement can contribute: less time spent ratifying decisions already made, more time spent shaping them. Spend under management has grown as a result, and the conversations between procurement and the business have shifted from administrative to commercial.

A procurement function that can finally see itself 
The most lasting change isn't a cycle time metric. It's what the data now makes possible. Country procurement leads can see request volumes, team workload, and demand patterns in real time — and use that picture to make better decisions about capacity, priorities, and where to focus commercial effort. That's a different kind of procurement function: not one that processes what arrives, but one that understands what's coming.

Omnea's AI is already doing visible work inside Adecco's operation, flagging weak requests before they reach procurement, surfacing existing suppliers before new ones are introduced, and identifying the form friction that adds days to cycle times. Agents will be automating approval steps where criteria are clear, and surfacing context where human judgement is needed. The intake layer isn't just a front door anymore, it's the intelligence layer the function runs on.

"Omnea’s AI is changing the way we work, and it's helping shape what's becoming integral to our operating model. The solution is flexible, resilient, and works extremely well for us. And the Omnea team has been a strong partner throughout the journey."

Giulio Maccaroni, Head of Digital Procurement