Discover increases procurement throughput by 67% with Zip

The challenge

Discover Financial Services, one of the largest and most prominent digital banking services in the world, was grappling with a complex procurement process. Across the company, many considered procurement the most complex process at Discover.

With thousands of employees submitting over 3,100 requests annually across more than 20 teams, the process was cumbersome, involving the coordination of five different systems—the complexity of which opened the doors to a myriad of potential risks. In the global financial services industry, there is little room for these kinds of errors.

"Due to the highly complex nature of the vendor onboarding process, we found that a lot of our end users were actually having vendors processed non-compliantly,” said Jason Moore, Former Sr. Director of Procurement Operations at Discover

Operating at the scale of a massive global financial enterprise, Discover set out looking for a solution.

The solution

In searching for an enterprise-grade platform to streamline their complex multi-national procurement requirements, Discover found their ideal solution in Zip.

“We evaluated many different solutions in this space,” Jason explained. “Ultimately in 2021, we found Zip, which could bring all of these disparate processes and systems together.

Zip offered a no-code platform that was easily configurable and maintainable in-house, eliminating the need for offshore development resources, and reducing reliance on multiple disjointed systems. With Zip, Discover could now centralize Intake for all purchasing requests, orchestrating procurement processes across disparate teams efficiently.

"We tried to solve this challenge with a homegrown intake and workflow automation solution, but it still required navigating five different systems after intake,” said Jason. “We are now down to one system, which is Zip."

The result

Implementing Zip led to remarkable improvements in Discover’s procurement operations. The company saw a 67% increase in throughput and a 14% reduction in cycle time, facilitating a much faster and more compliant procurement process.

Discover successfully eliminated 3,000 business approvals annually, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing errors. Additionally, requestors now interacted with just one system instead of five, significantly improving the user experience and compliance adherence.

“Zip's really delivered a truly transformative experience for our end users,” Jason said. “They now have transparency across the entire process, whereas before they were often navigating in the dark.”



“What's most important is really we have happy end users who are willing and more than happy to engage in what was a really cumbersome and complex process before.”

With Zip, Discover not only streamlined its procurement process but also unlocked new levels of operational excellence for their own employees, paving the way for a brighter financial future for their customers across the globe.