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At a glance
“
Zip was one of the best decisions we made. It helped us build a future-proof procurement function in a high-growth SaaS company that allows us to manage spend, prove value, and deserve the trust of our stakeholders.
”
- No procurement process meant ad hoc approvals over Slack or Jira
- No visibility into spend, renewals, or contracts
- Teams moved slowly and often duplicated work
- Centralized, scalable process owned entirely by procurement
- Cycle times reduced to 9-15 days on average
- 52% of spend now under management
The challenge
No process, no visibility, and no time to waste
When Pieter-Jan Cuvelier joined Lighthouse as their first Procurement Director, he stepped into a fast-growing SaaS company with 700+ employees across Europe and no procurement process. Recent acquisitions had added complexity, but there was still no structured approach to buying.
“It looked like you can imagine,” PJ explained. “No centralized process. A lot of people with the best intent trying to get contracts signed, involving legal security more on an ad hoc basis via Slack workflows or via a service desk environment.”
Teams were duplicating efforts, approvals happened through fragmented channels, and contract signatures were completely manual. There was zero visibility into spending or renewals, making budgeting nearly impossible.
“If you don’t have that visibility, you’re always in reactive mode,” PJ said. “You see something and want to solve it, but probably have to wait another twelve months.” For a company planning on continued growth, reactive mode wasn’t a viable path forward
The solution
Building a future-proof procurement function
Having successfully implemented Zip at a previous company, PJ knew exactly what Lighthouse needed: a scalable, no-code solution that could grow without requiring constant IT support or extensive employee training.
“A solution like Zip is the basis for every procurement function,” PJ said. “We don’t have resources to train 700 people every month on process changes. So having an easy, no-code solution that allows you to tweak it as you go is key.”
Implementation took just a few months. Zip became Lighthouse’s single front door for all procurement requests, immediately solving the fragmentation problem. The platform’s flexibility allowed PJ to design conditional workflows that automatically routed requests to the right stakeholders.
“We really try to be a partner to many teams,” PJ said. “And I think Zip helps us bring all those stakeholders together and drive that collaboration.”
The result
Procurement that moves fast and drives value
After Zip’s implementation, Lighthouse’s nonexistent procurement process transformed into a mature, efficient function that actively supports business growth. Cycle times now average 9-15 days with 45-60 unique requesters per quarter.
The centralized system created immediate visibility into all spend commitments, enabling better forecasting and positioning procurement as a strategic enabler rather than a bottleneck. The impact was noticeable. “One of the biggest compliments came from our CFO, who said, ‘I wish I had started with procurement earlier,’” PJ recalled.
Zip’s ease of use eliminated training needs across Lighthouse’s workforce, which is distributed across the EU. “Having something easy without the need to train people just increases adoption. And increased adoption means increased compliance,” PJ said.
Most importantly, Zip gave Lighthouse the foundation to scale efficiently. As a the company continues expanding across Europe and adding products through acquisitions, the procurement function can adapt without requiring major system overhauls.
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