Today marks a landmark moment for Zip.

When Lu and I launched the company in 2020 with Intake-to-Procure, our goal was to reimagine how businesses manage procurement and to empower our customers to significantly accelerate their pace of innovation.

I’m proud to say that since then, our product has evolved to transform the entire procurement process—from intake to pay—by orchestrating distributed systems that reflect how people actually work. In doing so, we have earned the trust of remarkable companies like Discover Financial, Instacart, Reddit, Northwestern Mutual, and hundreds more.

The numbers speak for themselves. In just four years, we’ve helped our customers save over $4.4 billion. IDC research shows that businesses using Zip achieve an incredible annual ROI of more than $14 million, and are realizing productivity gains of up to 25% for each employee.

But this is just the start.

Today, we’re unveiling a bold new brand design and several innovative capabilities that will continue to raise the bar for what’s possible in procurement. Because at Zip, we believe that when procurement flows, business flows.

A new chapter for Zip

Zip’s new brand signifies the next step in the journey we’ve been on since our founding. 

Every aspect of this design has been carefully crafted to align with our mission: to unblock innovation by helping companies procure with the fastest process, the least risk, and the best value. 

Our commitment remains the same: to elevate the procurement process and enable employees, stakeholders, and procurement teams to connect more effectively with the world’s suppliers, allowing business to flow.

By orchestrating processes across every element of business spend, Zip enables companies to leverage each other’s strengths, resulting in better products and services. It’s our deeply held belief that better flow between businesses creates more value for the world.

With our stunning new brand design, we reaffirm our dedication to empowering our customers to achieve peak performance, to foster an environment where collaboration thrives, collective strengths shine, and great businesses are built.

Today, we usher in the next era of procurement by opening clear and transparent pathways that enable business to flow.

New category leadership

I’m also excited to share that our efforts have been recognized by leading analysts in our industry.

Just this week, Zip was recognized as a Leader in the first-ever IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Spend Orchestration Vendor Assessment (doc #US51795424e, September 2024).

This groundbreaking recognition marks a significant milestone in the evolution of procurement, establishing spend orchestration as its own category. We are thrilled that IDC has recognized us as a leader in this space.

This accolade is a testament to the exceptional work our team has done to pioneer this area and redefine how organizations manage their procurement processes. I couldn’t be prouder of what we have achieved together.

Relentless innovation driven by customer needs

But we’re just getting started. As a product and engineering-led company, we maintain a relentless focus on continually innovating where our customers need us most. That’s why I’m pleased to introduce several incredible new features to the Zip intake and orchestration platform today.

Maximize efficiency and savings with preferred supplier purchasing
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Every year, employees and procurement teams spend countless hours onboarding new suppliers or sifting through approved catalogs for simple purchases.

Our new preferred supplier purchasing capabilities are designed to save requesters thousands of hours by identifying the most optimal suppliers and catalogs to purchase from.

Powered by Zip AI, supplier search intelligently surfaces contracted suppliers to requesters, encouraging purchases with existing suppliers rather than time-intensive supplier onboarding. AI supplier search helps prevent duplicative supplier sprawl allowing companies to drive more contracted spend—maximizing saving in the long run.

In addition, our intuitive cross-catalog purchasing feature offers a centralized shopping experience, allowing employees to search and purchase items across multiple supplier catalogs through a single, user-friendly interface. 

AI supplier search and cross-catalog purchasing means everyone using Zip—from healthcare providers quickly purchasing life-saving medical equipment, to tech companies identifying trusted vendors for advanced IT solutions—can procure faster, with less risk, and more value.

Drive advanced accounting efficiency with Zip AI
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We’re also thrilled to unveil AI invoice coding, a revolutionary new way for accounting teams to reduce manual work and process invoices faster. By leveraging artificial intelligence, this feature determines the optimal invoice line structure and coding of invoice lines. 

Unlike other solutions on the market, Zip AI analyzes historical coding patterns within your own organization to provide more accurate suggestions, eliminating the need for manual reviews of countless individual invoice lines. This means faster, more efficient processing—allowing your team to focus on strategic initiatives, rather than tedious tasks.

Prevent budget overruns and drive financial predictability
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As business moves faster, having comprehensive, real-time budget visibility is more essential than ever before. Our strategic budgets integration with Workday Adaptive Planning delivers real-time budget visibility right within Zip's platform interface.

This powerful integration empowers teams to make informed purchasing decisions with real-time visibility into budgets. This means right within Zip, finance and procurement teams get a clear understanding of how money is being spent against budgets, all while easily tracking actual spend, approved spend, and pending spend—all in one place.

At Zip, we are committed to innovating at the cutting-edge of what’s possible in procurement, providing high-ROI solutions that enhance processes, increase impact, and earn procurement a seat at the table.

Great businesses are built on great businesses

But of course, it all comes back to our customers.

On the Zip Forward stage today, we stand with over 400 finance and procurement leaders who are shaping the future of their organizations. 

Leaders from Snowflake, Prudential, Lyft, Dollar Tree, Arm, Coinbase, Canva, Udemy, and more, have brought together our community, demonstrating how to forge sustainable success in a market that is forever shifting.

We’re honored to host all of our incredible guests at this year’s Zip Forward, a community that continually inspires us and reinforces our commitment to delivering the best tools and innovations to meet the needs of modern business. 

We can’t wait to share what we’ve learned from our community at Zip Forward.

Orchestrating the future of procurement with Zip

Today at Zip, we’re elevating procurement by creating clear pathways for the resources that allow companies to flow. Our products and innovations are rooted in this commitment: to provide consumer-grade, scalable solutions that simplify the complexities of procurement.

We envision a future where organizations can focus on their core strengths, while seamlessly leveraging the expertise of their suppliers. At Zip, we believe that great products are built upon great products, great businesses are built upon great businesses—and that no business works alone.

As we move forward, I invite you to explore our new brand vision and our latest product offerings and experience the power of a procurement process that truly works for you.

Thank you for being a part of our journey, and let’s continue to shape the future of procurement together.

Sincerely,

Rujul Zaparde

Co-founder and CEO, Zip