Less busywork. More breakthroughs.
SourceDay’s custom automation engine allows procurement teams to shift their energy from repetitive tasks to impactful initiatives.
ABOUT SOURCEDAY
↗SourceDay is a supply chain collaboration platform that helps manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers manage purchase order (PO) changes, supplier communication, and procurement workflows more efficiently. It replaces manual processes, like spreadsheets and email, with automated, real-time tools that improve visibility, accuracy, and accountability across the purchasing lifecycle.
PROJECT SUMMARY
PO management is an incredibly manual process, with 100% of orders requiring at least 1 touch by the buyer and 88% requiring 2+ touch points, each of which introduces opportunities for human error and diverts buyer attention away from high impact work – ‘if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority’.
By automating the low-impact and repetitive tasks throughout the purchasing process, buyers are left to focus on higher impact issues and proactive risk avoidance.
Before SourceDay
A typical buyer manages hundreds (sometimes thousands) of POs per year. Every order requires multiple manual touchpoints across emails, phone calls, spreadsheets, and ERP edits.
- 88% of POs require 2+ interventions
- 35% of POs get buyer-initiated changes and 15% receive supplier-initiated changes
- 37% are late – triggering even more reactive work
The opportunity with SourceDay automations
By automating routine interactions throughout the PO process, SourceDay helps buyers prioritize high-impact orders and reduce time spent on low-risk tasks.
USER RESEARCH
Our research initiative began with a group of executive stakeholders at a Customer Advisory Board. The goal was to better understand their perspective on the value of automation within procurement and to identify which Buyer tasks were perceived as low-value and ripe for automation.
Building on these strategic insights, we developed a series of early prototypes to explore possible automation solutions. These prototypes were tested with customers, who provided detailed feedback during hands-on sessions. Through this iterative discovery process, we aimed to answer several key questions:
- How comfortable are procurement organizations with automating day-to-day Buyer tasks?
- Who within a company is typically responsible for configuring and managing automation?
- What types of automation tools or configurations best align with varied business needs?
- Do customers currently have the data and visibility needed to identify which tasks should be automated?
- What insights do customers need to know if their workflow is automating what they intended?
This research has laid the foundation for a solution strategy that is not only aligned with customer expectations but also flexible enough to adapt to diverse procurement environments.
Early concept 1
Early concept 2
Early concept 3
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PRODUCT OPPORTUNITY
Our research found the following to be true:
- Although executives thought automation could help reduce operating costs, the main value is that it would free their teams up for more strategic tasks
- From executives to end users, no one knew what to automate. We need to provide best practices and suggestions for automation workflows.
- Although manufacturing companies can be skeptical of AI and automation, they felt comfortable creating and enabling the workflows
- Users did not know where to start with more complex builders. They preferred the simple form-like experiences that walked them through what to do next.
BETA TAKEAWAYS
Over a 6 week period, we engaged 6 different customers to test and see the impact of the custom automation workflows. Knowing that customers needed help understanding what to automate, we built in consultation hours with our data science team to analyze where we saw opportunities based on historical data. To date, one customer has already seen 500+ hours saved across 5 different workflows.
CUSTOM AUTOMATIONS – A LOOK AHEAD
We're exploring natural language interfaces that let buyers describe what they want to automate in plain terms – no rule-building required. Paired with intelligent in-app dashboards that surface automation opportunities and quantify their impact, the vision is a system that guides buyers toward better outcomes, not just executes their instructions.
