A new approach to digital procurement—Orpheus, a McKinsey company

The role of spend analytics and the procurement function is changing. Against a backdrop of a shifting global economic context, including the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the localization of value chains, and increasing consumer demands for mass customization and personalization, there is a need for organizations to obtain actionable insights that help capture more impact in procurement.

The digitally enabled procurement function of the future will be involved in all business value-chain activities from product development to distribution, while playing a strategic role in managing budgets and costs, anticipating and mitigating supply risk, and driving compliance.

To enable this new vision of procurement, we are delighted to announce the acquisition of Orpheus GmbH, a recognized innovator in digital procurement. Founded in Germany in 2005, Orpheus develops software that helps organizations optimize their external expenditure throughout their operations, by analyzing purchasing data streams for value-capture opportunities and measuring realized procurement impact.

With this acquisition, McKinsey brings a new offering to clients: Orpheus, a McKinsey company—a service that will enable spend transparency, spend and cost analytics, and value-capture management. The offering is a powerful combination of Orpheus’ advanced platform technology with McKinsey’s industry expertise and content-rich services in digital procurement.

By infusing best-in-class technology and AI-based analytics with deep supply-market and category-sourcing expertise, and by innovating with service-delivery models including outsourcing, the new offering helps clients unlock the value hidden in their purchasing data: actionable insights that help capture more impact in procurement, sustainably.

Based in Nuremberg and with a robust clientele, Orpheus has a reputation for delivering quality and value in solution areas including automated data extraction; AI-enabled spend categorization; and spend and category prescriptive and predictive analytics, including software agents (BOTs) and procurement impact tracking.

Orpheus, a McKinsey company will support CPOs, CFOs, and category managers with actionable insights to effectively and efficiently address and manage these focus areas, resulting in significant bottom-line benefits. Clients can choose from a palette of technology solutions and services to meet their specific needs, including: one-off spend cubes and opportunity assessments; technology licenses; spend data processing and actionable insight services; and impact program management.

The launch of Orpheus, a McKinsey company redefines a complex, underestimated, and undervalued discipline of Procurement Excellence into an exciting source of value creation for its clients.

For more information on Orpheus, a McKinsey company, please email us.

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