Ivalua Drives AI Transformation at London Innovation Tour

Procurement leaders from across the world joined Ivalua at the British Museum on June 16 as part of the company's Procurement Innovation on Tour event.

Taking place at the British Museum, a space dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London, the venue boasts a permanent collection of eight million works, making it the largest in the world.

Shifting playbooks and digital triumphs

But as the space looks to the past, Ivalua was looking to the future, as the procurement landscape is shifting fast. Driven by AI breakthroughs and a volatile global economy, the old playbook no longer works. To stay ahead, Ivalua believes that leaders must adapt, innovate and future-proof their operations today.

Attendees on the day discovered cutting-edge tech, learned directly from industry trailblazers and connected with local visionaries ready to redefine what’s possible.

Kicking off the event were Ivalua’s Alex Saric, Chief Marketing Officer, and Ian Thompson, VP Sales, Northern Europe.

Alex said: “The pace of innovation has accelerated so rapidly recently, particularly when it comes to AI, that once a year simply isn't enough. There have been so many developments just in the past few months, and over the course of today, we'll showcase some of that.”

The pair discussed Ivalua's rapid regional growth, expanding from a handful of clients to 28 major enterprise customers and 16 active partners in the UK. Ivalua’s long-term organisational consistency has directly enabled them to build an "enterprise AI platform" rooted in a unified data model.

By consolidating supplier data from up to hundreds of back-end systems into a single record, Ivalua effectively shifts data from being a notorious digital transformation bottleneck into a distinct competitive advantage capable of fuelling autonomous AI workflows across the entire source-to-pay lifecycle.

The company explored its powerful enhancements to its Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA), alongside automated intake management and advanced contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools. Through the integration of sophisticated multi-agent orchestration, Ivalua now enables completely autonomous RFP drafting, proactive supplier performance monitoring and seamless data synchronisation across multiple ERP systems.

Mastering speed and stakeholder engagement

This was followed by a panel discussion titled, 'From Vision to Value: Delivering Transformation at Speed', which saw leaders explore how to plan and collaborate for a seamless rollout. These experts talked about stakeholder engagement and change management strategies that ensure organisations harness technology from day one to deliver rapid, tangible business outcomes.

Taking part in the panel were David Ord, Product Manager at IPC International; Callum Jolly, Head of Commercial Operations & Strategic Supplier Management at Smart DCC; James Tilley, VP Supply Chain at Capgemini, and the session was hosted by Kaunain Naurani, VP Strategic Accounts at Ivalua.

This panel explored the modern catalysts and tactical blueprints behind successful procurement transformations. Organisations are primarily driven to transform by heightened regulatory oversight, large business-critical projects and the mandate to maximise profitability for stakeholders. To navigate these shifts, the panellists emphasised combining structured "waterfall" phase controls with rapid, iterative "agile" sprints during the design phase to avoid late-stage user rejection.

Successful implementation relies on clean data management, early stakeholder and supplier buy-in, and securing strategic deployment partners. While embedded AI capabilities offer vast potential to accelerate decision-making, manage market volatility and reduce cycle times, the panellists cautioned organisations to align these advancements with clear business cases and software roadmaps to prevent projects from getting bogged down in protracted, internal architectural debates.

The vanguard of autonomous procurement

The event also focused on the practical application and future of AI in procurement, beginning with a panel discussion featuring executives from Rolls-Royce, NESO, Accenture and IntegrityNext, who shared their blueprints for transitioning AI from pilot phases to daily, mission-critical operations.

Following this, Ivalua hosted a showcase demonstrating how a single agentic system can handle any Source-to-Pay process under the direction of procurement professionals.

The company stressed that autonomy is a dial procurement teams turn at their own pace rather than a switch that hands control to AI. The afternoon concluded with a fireside chat on realising the potential of digital transformation featuring Nikki Wright, MS Amlin’s CPO.