Klaviyo builds procurement from the ground up with Zip

Michael Donovan, Director of Procure to Pay at Klaviyo, recently joined Zip during a webinar on how AI-enabled orchestration is reshaping the procurement landscape and how Zip is helping Klaviyo’s procurement team scale.

Challenge

When Michael Donovan joined Klaviyo as the company’s first procurement hire four years ago, he faced the challenge of building an entire procurement function from scratch in a fast-moving technology environment. Klaviyo had heavy purchasing needs across SaaS, cloud hosting, partnerships, and marketing, which created significant complexity without established processes.

Before Zip, Michael says, "I actually built the craziest Slack intake form that was linked to Zapier that then sent emails that went to OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and then went to different email inboxes." On top of email-driven processes, requesters were constantly chasing updates, which made stakeholders view procurement as a bottleneck.

Solution

Michael’s team implemented Zip's procurement orchestration platform to automate the end-to-end procurement process and integrate with existing tools including Ironclad (contract management), OneTrust (risk and compliance), and Freshservice (IT ticketing).

The orchestration layer allowed each cross-functional team to work within their preferred systems while maintaining end-to-end visibility.

The operating model shifted to business enablement, with team members aligned to specific business units. "One of our goals within procurement is we're here to enable the business,” Michael shares. “We're not here to stop you or be an unnecessary roadblock… but there are things we have to do to put controls in place."

Low-risk requests were streamlined through self-service workflows. "There was a subset of requests that we carved out that said, 'These are really low risk to us. We're just gonna pump them through.' Our stakeholders appreciated that more than probably most things we do."

Results

Michael's lean team now manages procurement, accounts payable, and travel and expense across the organization. The transformation has eliminated manual intervention. "It's a lot less chasing than when I first started in procurement, which was essentially all emails back and forth,” he says.

The dedicated business alignment model improved stakeholder relationships and demonstrated procurement's strategic value. "They have somebody dedicated to them that they know they can go to for any questions,” Michael adds. “That person is going to walk them through the process, teach them what's happen, how to interact with legal, and what questions are going come back from risk and trust."

With Zip helping orchestrate procurement across the organization, Klaviyo can now continue to grow and scale with the right processes in place.