How Lio Transformed Procurement at Surventis

In enterprise procurement, scale is both a competitive advantage and an operational challenge. Surventis, manages 6,000 different raw materials and hundreds of thousands of finished products. The volume of supply chains, suppliers and internal demands requires precise, fast management.

The story to transform Surventis, which was formally known as BASF Coatings until a relaunch in July 2026, completing its transition to an independent company following its carve-out from BASF, did not begin in a boardroom.

It started a year ago, when Surventis was still known as BASF Coatings, at the Digital Procurement World (DPW) conference in Amsterdam, where Lisa Madynski, Global Procurement Indirect Excellence at Surventis, almost walked past an busy exhibition booth.

That booth belonged to Lio. After returning three times, what nearly became a missed opportunity evolved into one of the company's flagship customer partnerships, centred on transforming how Surventis manages internal procurement demand.

Lio accelerates enterprise procurement with its AI workforce. Its network of specialised AI agents works in parallel to handle tasks such as vendor research and negotiations to final delivery tracking, transforming hours of manual effort into instant, automated results.

Operating on a global scale meant Surventis Coatings relied on multiple procurement intake processes across its organisation.

Replacing fragmented procurement

"From an operational view, we had the situation that we had several different intake points," explains Maike Istel-Pohle, Director of Indirect Procurement at Surventis. "We had several different solutions how our requisitioners could bring in a demand."

Multiple intake points created a fragmented purchasing experience for requisitioners whilst limiting visibility across procurement. To improve efficiency, Surventis sought to consolidate these entry points without introducing additional complexity.

By partnering with Lio, the company streamlined its intake ecosystem into a single intelligent interface. The platform acts as a digital front door for internal demand, helping employees navigate to the appropriate buying channel whilst giving procurement greater transparency across requests.

Andreas Radtke, Head of Procurement Digitalisation at Surventis, says: "The first key topic is our requisitioners will have one single interface which is intelligent and will help them to get the right product. And the second key topic is that in procurement we have the full transparency.

Early demand signals

Vladimir Keil, CEO & Founder at Lio, says: "Surventis is a world of incredible scale, thousands of materials, countless products, sites across the globe. Bringing clarity to procurement at that scale isn't easy. So we did it together."

Enterprise software deployments can often face resistance from end users. However, the Lio implementation generated significant demand during its early phases, with employees eager to begin using the new platform.

Lisa Madynski echoed that enthusiasm, explaining that employees were already "knocking on our doors" asking when they could access the tool, reinforcing confidence that Surventis had selected the right solution.

She attributes that response to the collaborative relationship between the two organisations. Technical workshops brought Surventis testers together with Lio's developers and engineers, enabling teams to resolve final technical issues together whilst building confidence in the solution before rollout.

Building towards an agentic procurement future

For Surventis, however, streamlining procurement intake represents only the beginning. The wider ambition centres on Agentic AI and increasingly autonomous procurement processes.

Procurement leadership envisions a future in which AI automatically selects the appropriate buying channel, manages negotiations across selected purchasing categories and allows procurement professionals to intervene only when strategic oversight is required.

"My future is Agentic AI," concludes Martin Beck, VP Global Procurement at Surventis. "What do you do at home? If I want something, I make a photo, shop on the internet and get it. What we do at home, we also should be able to do at work. This is a train that's on its way and you can stop it. You better jump on this train and see how far you can go."

By restructuring front-end procurement intake, Surventis and Lio have addressed an immediate operational challenge whilst laying the foundations for increasingly autonomous procurement operations.

Vladimir Keil, CEO & Founder at Lio, adds: "The early results spoke for themselves. People started knocking on the door asking for access and when users fight to get into a procurement tool, you know something's working. And we're just getting started.

"Huge thanks to the Surventis team for the trust and the energy."