From Insights to Execution: A Conversation with Nicolas Neubauer from Ivoflow – Predictive Procurement Analytics

Fabian Heinrich (00:01)

A very warm welcome to another episode of Procurement Unplugged. Today we’re joined by the CEO and founder of Ivoflow, Nico Neubauer. It’s a real pleasure to have you with us today, Nico – welcome.

Nicolas Neubauer (00:15)

Many thanks, dear Fabian, for the invitation. I’m really looking forward to our chat today.

Fabian Heinrich (00:19)

Yes, there’s certainly a lot going on in our procurement world these days. One crisis follows the next. You’ve been in procurement for many years now – possibly even decades. I think it would be quite interesting for our listeners to hear: how did you actually get into procurement in the first place? It's not exactly the most obvious career path most young people consider.

Nicolas Neubauer (00:45)

That’s very true. How did I end up in procurement? Quite traditionally, really – through my studies. I attended a lecture on procurement and logistics, and I quickly developed a keen interest in the topic. I was fortunate to gain my first practical experience at a local Tier 1 automotive supplier during a placement phase, working in strategic procurement. Back then, it was all about tool management with suppliers.

That experience led me to write my bachelor thesis in that area, and afterwards I joined TRW Automotive, an American automotive supplier, where I completed another placement and had my first real exposure to strategic procurement.

Fabian Heinrich (01:29)

So that must have been around 10 to 15 years ago. What’s changed since then? I assume a lot has, especially with the rise of digitalisation in procurement. Could you describe what strategic procurement looked like when you started, and how it’s evolved into what we see today in 2025?

Nicolas Neubauer (01:54)

Well, if you think back to procurement 10 or 15 years ago, one word comes to mind: Microsoft Excel. That was one of the key reasons my co-founder Daniel Eiberflur and I started Ivoflow five years ago. We always found it quite unbelievable that, even in the automotive supplier industry with billions in procurement volume, strategic spend was still being managed using Microsoft Excel.

Of course, ERP systems existed, and they were used to manage master and transactional data. But all the analysis – reporting, potential analysis, preparation for supplier negotiations – was done manually by exporting data from ERP systems to Excel, enriching it with market data, and so on. Three days later, the world had changed again, the data was outdated, and you basically had to start from scratch. That was typical in my early procurement days – time-consuming, manual analysis.

That’s one of the main reasons we said, five years ago: there has to be a better way. Especially in industries with large procurement volumes, where procurement plays a crucial role in a company’s success.

Fabian Heinrich (03:12)

So essentially, from Excel and Outlook to Ivoflow. Fascinating! For those listeners who may not be familiar with Ivoflow, could you give a quick overview of what you do, how long you’ve been around, who uses Ivoflow, and what the key benefits are?

Nicolas Neubauer (03:37)

Lots of questions there! Ivoflow has been around for about five years now. After founding the company, we brought our product to market. If you had to categorise us, we’d fall under Spend Analytics. But we’ve taken it a step further. In Ivoflow’s early days, we spent a lot of time thinking about the main areas procurement deals with daily – especially in the automotive and manufacturing industries, where cost savings and profitability are always front of mind.

We asked ourselves: how can we better identify potential cost savings and opportunities to push negotiations forward? Then we asked: what data do we need to do that? Our idea was to combine internal procurement data – which we traditionally focus on – with external market data.

For example: how are raw material prices developing? How are tariffs and duties changing? What impact do exchange rates have on my purchasing costs? Then we provide buyers with proactive suggestions – identifying contracts to renegotiate, for instance – without them having to conduct manual analysis. So, internal and external data connected in one platform, producing automated recommendations aimed at achieving the best prices and supporting profitability.

Fabian Heinrich (05:16)

You make it sound easy! Most companies struggle just to clean and make sense of their internal data. And you’re now combining that with external data. How do you manage that? How do you deal with internal data in the first place, and then marry that with external sources? And perhaps most interesting of all – what sort of external data are you using?

Nicolas Neubauer (05:56)

We began by asking: what does the ideal data foundation look like for a strategic buyer’s analysis? Our platform is built around an idealised strategic procurement database, which starts off empty with each new client. We then populate it via interfaces.

Internal data – often considered messy or chaotic by companies – isn’t usually as bad as they think. You just need to structure and interpret it properly. We start by importing master and transaction data from our clients’ ERP systems – and these can vary widely, as many companies have multiple ERPs due to M&A activity.

We then bring in external data via APIs as well. We’re connected to several established market data providers – for example, XE in Toronto, from whom we receive updates on 29,000 exchange rate pairs daily. SimplyDuty in London provides daily updated import and customs duty values. We also have partnerships with providers of indices for raw material prices, energy prices, wage cost developments, and so on.

Once the external data is integrated, our platform applies its intelligence: tracking how internal data evolves on one side, and how external market data shifts on the other.

Fabian Heinrich (07:50)

So that means…

Nicolas Neubauer (08:11)

Exactly – based on defined thresholds, the system automatically notifies users. For instance, if energy prices fall and that creates an opportunity to renegotiate component prices.

Fabian Heinrich (08:23)

So your approach isn’t supplier-centric, but part-centric. That means you don’t necessarily need a supplier-level internal-external match because you're analysing by item?

Nicolas Neubauer (08:37)

Exactly – we always start with the article number and then aggregate upwards: supplier, component family, commodity group, cluster, region, country. But that’s secondary. We begin at the most granular level – sometimes even below the article level, at the cost driver level.

Fabian Heinrich (08:57)

Understood. So who would be a typical Ivoflow user?

Nicolas Neubauer (09:04)

Basically, any company that manufactures physical products and purchases in batch sizes. Traditional craftsmanship businesses aren’t our core clients, but consumer goods manufacturers, automotive suppliers and OEMs, construction equipment companies – those are typical Ivoflow customers. Businesses with large order volumes, long project timelines, and often tight profit margins in competitive markets.

Fabian Heinrich (09:40)

So do you have a minimum spend threshold? Does Ivoflow only make sense from, say, €100 million in procurement spend upwards?

Nicolas Neubauer (10:00)

That’s actually one of our soft criteria. Our smallest customer has a procurement volume of about €500 million. Our largest customers are in the multi-billion range.

Fabian Heinrich (10:10)

So upper mid-market to large enterprises – in manufacturing, automotive, consumer goods. What about chemicals?

Nicolas Neubauer (10:27)

Definitely an interesting sector for us as well. Regarding spend levels: it’s not about being too selective, but procurement volume is a good proxy for complexity and global setup. Our clients tend to have multiple global production sites, complex supply chains, and so on. €500 million is a rough benchmark – above that, we typically see companies with 4–6 global sites and highly international procurement operations.

Fabian Heinrich (11:20)

So, if I combine Ivoflow with a risk or ESG tool, I’m essentially sitting on a galaxy of data. I’m no longer just reacting to crises – I can be proactive, in the driver’s seat.

Nicolas Neubauer (11:46)

Absolutely – and that reflects part of our product vision for the coming years. There are so many fantastic solutions on the market – yours is certainly one of them. But many companies struggle to integrate and act on all the insights these tools provide. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to act as the smart layer – consolidating data from all these sources into one platform.

So we don’t just pull in market data like pricing or tariffs, but also risk data – for example, supplier financial risks or geopolitical events. If there’s a geopolitical flashpoint in Region X, and you’ve got €100 million of spend at risk, we’ll let you know. We can also show you your current inventory situation, where it’s critical, where alternative suppliers exist, etc.

We don’t want to build everything ourselves – we want to be the intelligent layer on top of a client’s existing systems, integrating data from ERPs, market data, SRM, risk tools and so on, and turning that into actionable insights. The buyer remains in the driver’s seat, selecting the most relevant recommendations – either because of strong savings potential, or to avoid major risks.

Fabian Heinrich (13:40)

That’s exactly it. Everyone’s afraid of big, messy integrations – but if modern tools are well designed and open, you can achieve seamless integration. In sales and marketing, we’ve seen this work brilliantly – take Salesforce or HubSpot, where you can just plug in a new app and instantly get added insights.

Procurement tech is still about a decade behind digital sales and marketing, and your approach feels very much like that next evolution. Whether it’s Trump raising tariffs or a China–US trade war – knowing what that means for my supply chain, whether I need to move sourcing to Mexico – that's incredibly valuable.

But of course, that’s only half the battle – the other half is execution. That’s where a system like Makana comes in. Ivoflow gives me the real-time insights; I react by sourcing new suppliers in Mexico, and the system handles qualification and procurement.

That’s what buyers have been wanting for years: tools that work together seamlessly – from insights through to action.

Nicolas Neubauer (15:44)

I totally agree. Marketing and sales tools are still probably seven or eight years ahead of procurement tech. And like you said, insights need to lead to execution – that’s key.

Fabian Heinrich (16:05)

Have you seen an uptick in interest lately? With all the news around trade wars, tariffs, and global crises – are more companies coming to you, saying: “We’re overwhelmed with data chaos, and our margins are suffering – we need Ivoflow as our lifeline”?

Nicolas Neubauer (16:37)

Absolutely. I’d even say “savings are sexy again.” When we started Ivoflow five years ago, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came the Suez Canal crisis, the energy price shock, the war in Ukraine… All of that pushed the market’s focus onto risk and resilience tools.

Now we’re seeing a clear shift back toward commercial performance – understanding whether companies are still buying at good prices. Many firms have lost that sense because markets have been so volatile over the past five years.

At the same time, there’s a renewed hunger to identify savings and push negotiations forward. So current market conditions actually play to our strengths.

Fabian Heinrich (17:36)

You made a great point earlier about risk and resilience tools often being used in isolation. But the real value comes from turning insights into real-time actions. That’s when you truly step into the driver’s seat – not just protecting the bottom line, but actively boosting profits.

Nicolas Neubauer (18:29)

Exactly – and particularly in your space, Fabian – SRM, sourcing, etc.

In the past, from my own experience, those processes were often so slow and cumbersome that even if you’d identified a great new supplier, you’d stick with your existing one just to avoid the hassle of onboarding and qualification – which could take up to eight months.

We sometimes made suboptimal decisions for the business, simply because the technology didn’t allow us to act quickly – not in scouting, not in sourcing, not in onboarding.

Fabian Heinrich (19:30)

Which brings us full circle to where your own procurement career started 10–15 years ago. I think over the last 10 minutes, we’ve really mapped out where we are today – how tools like yours are empowering buyers not just to survive crises but to thrive through them, armed with the right data, intelligence, and ability to execute.

So looking ahead – if we sit down again in two or three years, or even five – how do you see this vision evolving?

Nicolas Neubauer (20:22)

On one hand, we’ll see whether we – and the wider ecosystem – have managed to deliver seamless integration and continued growth.

On the other, there’s an interesting parallel with sales. Sales performance is typically measured by revenue growth – but also market share. So a sales team could double its revenue, but still lose 30% market share if the market grows faster.

In procurement, we’re only measured against internal targets – budgets and savings. Until now, we’ve had no way of benchmarking: how do I compare to my peers? How do my top five competitors perform?

With all the data now being collected, we’ll soon be able to create indices to benchmark procurement performance. That could fundamentally change how we set targets – moving beyond the usual 3–5% annual savings to something far more strategic and externally referenced.

Fabian Heinrich (22:07)

That’s a fascinating point – especially from an operational process view. In sales, everything is measured and transparent. Procurement is heading that way too.

From a tech perspective – we’re working a lot with AI agents now. I can imagine a future where AI agents connect across tools – where you can, say, ask an agent inside Makana to pull the latest insights from Ivoflow and automatically create action items or sourcing events.

This “junior category buyer agent” evolves into a “senior buyer agent” – pulling data, triggering sourcing, and leaving us as orchestrators or strategic overseers. That’s a massive value add.

Nicolas Neubauer (23:39)

Totally agree. There’ll always be parts of strategic spend that require human interaction – major negotiations with key tech partners, for example.

But we’ll free up time for that by automating the smaller, more transactional activities. That includes automatically issuing tenders, making award decisions, and so on.

I don’t think we’ll ever automate 100% of procurement, but we can reduce the need for large teams – or enable existing teams to finally work strategically.

If you asked procurement professionals how much of their time is actually spent on strategic work – despite having “strategy” in their job titles – the honest answer would probably be 10–20%. The rest is still spent on manual analysis, admin, firefighting.

That’s what we want to change – removing that invisible workload and enabling teams to focus on what truly matters.

Fabian Heinrich (25:08)

Absolutely – I don’t think we could have ended on a better note. Empowering organisations to focus on strategic work – that’s exactly the point.

Maybe next time we’ll have some survey results to back that up even further.

Thanks so much, Nico – it’s been a real pleasure. Great insights into your solution and the synergy with systems like ours. I hope our listeners enjoyed it just as much.

Nicolas Neubauer (25:47)

Thank you very much!