Beyond Kraljic & Chessboard – Navigating the New Era of Procurement

Whether you're piloting in one business unit or rolling out globally across hundreds of categories, akirolabs scales with you. The platform is designed to support multi-category, multi-region strategy creation - without limitations on users, strategies, or growth.

akirolabs delivers value across multiple dimensions beyond traditional cost savings. Our customers typically see improvements in strategy quality, stakeholder alignment, execution success rates, and category manager productivity. The platform helps unlock 4.4x higher value compared to traditional approaches by focusing on long-term strategic impact.

We define success collaboratively with your team. Typical outcomes include strategy creation for priority categories, measurable process improvements, and internal alignment. We provide full support and a clear roadmap for evaluation.

Yes, we offer guided pilots and sandbox environments depending on your stage in the buying process. These give you and your team the opportunity to explore features in your own context.

We recommend including key stakeholders from your procurement leadership team, category management function, and procurement excellence or transformation groups. Including business stakeholders can also be valuable to demonstrate how the platform facilitates cross-functional collaboration.

Most customers begin seeing tangible benefits within the first few months of implementation. The platform's intuitive design and guided workflows enable quick adoption, while the AI augmentation accelerates value delivery by enhancing decision quality from the start.

During the demo, you'll see the complete akirolabs Category Strategy Workbench in action, including the collaborative workflow, AI-powered insights from akiroAssist, strategic scenario modeling capabilities, and the Strategy One-Pager feature. We'll customize the demonstration to focus on aspects most relevant to your organization's needs.

Yes. The model is built using actual outcomes from existing customers across multiple industries, refined by insights from our Customer Success team and Advisory Board.

Yes, we can tailor the demo to showcase how akirolabs works with your specific categories and procurement structure. Let us know your priority areas in advance, and we'll customize the demonstration accordingly.

Following the demo, we'll discuss next steps based on your interest level. This might include a more detailed technical review, a pilot proposal, or a meeting with our customer success team to outline implementation plans. We're committed to ensuring you have all the information needed to make an informed decision.

A standard demo takes approximately 45-60 minutes, allowing time for a comprehensive overview of the platform and discussion of your specific requirements. We can adjust the timing based on your availability and areas of interest.

akirolabs positively impacts several key metrics including time-to-strategy (reduced by streamlined workflows), stakeholder satisfaction (improved through collaborative processes), strategy execution success rates (enhanced by better alignment), and procurement influence (expanded through strategic positioning).

No problem. We can use industry benchmarks and assumptions based on your maturity level and procurement structure to estimate a realistic ROI projection.

Success with akirolabs is measured across multiple dimensions including user adoption, strategy completion rates, stakeholder engagement levels, and business impact. Our Customer Success team works with you to establish relevant KPIs and track progress against your specific objectives.

We provide partners with comprehensive training, co-marketing opportunities, and ongoing support to ensure successful collaboration. Our partner program is designed to create mutual value and deliver exceptional results for end customers.

Our ROI calculator considers multiple factors including your current procurement maturity, spend under management, number of category managers, and strategic objectives. It provides a customized estimate of the value akirolabs can deliver for your specific organization.

We coordinate closely with partners through shared onboarding plans, access to technical documentation, and co-delivery support to ensure a smooth client experience.

Consulting firms can enhance their procurement transformation offerings by incorporating akirolabs' technology into their engagements. Our platform complements strategic advisory services by providing a sustainable digital solution that helps clients maintain and scale the improvements achieved through consulting initiatives.

akirolabs offers several partnership models including technology integrations, consulting partnerships, and implementation alliances. These partnerships are designed to extend the value of our platform and provide comprehensive solutions to customers.

If you're interested in partnering with akirolabs, reach out to our partnerships team to discuss potential collaboration opportunities. We're always looking for strategic partners who share our vision of transforming strategic procurement.

akirolabs integrates with various procurement and enterprise systems. We use API connections to AI market intelligence providers to curate content on categories from the web, and our platform is designed to complement existing sourcing, supplier management, and spend analytics tools.

Yes. akirolabs supports multiple languages and can be localized for international teams to ensure ease of use across global deployments.

We provide performance dashboards and offer anonymized benchmarking for key KPIs where available. As part of our Customer Advisory Board (CAB), you’ll also be able to share and learn from peer organizations.

Our platform transforms stakeholder engagement through collaborative workflows that involve business partners from the start. The Strategy One-Pager feature translates complex strategies into clear narratives aligned with business objectives, making it easier to secure buy-in and demonstrate procurement's strategic value.

Yes, akirolabs acts as both a technology solution and a transformation accelerator. Our AI-augmentation bridges capability gaps, while the structured workbench institutionalizes best practices. This combination helps teams rapidly advance their strategic maturity, regardless of their starting point.

akirolabs addresses key challenges including fragmented strategy development processes, limited stakeholder engagement, inconsistent approaches across teams, difficulty scaling strategic capability, and the struggle to demonstrate procurement's strategic value beyond savings.

Yes. akirolabs supports flexible access and permissions so stakeholders from finance, operations, R&D, or sustainability can participate in strategy creation, review, and approval—ensuring true cross-functional alignment.

Yes, akirolabs operates on an annual subscription model. We also offer short-term pilots or Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs) for qualified use cases.

akirolabs adapts to your team's maturity level. For emerging teams, it provides structure and guidance to establish strategic processes. For developing teams, it helps standardize approaches and build consistency. For advanced teams, it enables scaling excellence across regions and categories while driving innovation in strategy development.

Our customer onboarding process includes dedicated support from a Customer Success Manager, comprehensive training for users, strategy coaching, and best-practice sharing. We ensure your team is fully equipped to leverage the platform effectively from day one.

Absolutely. akirolabs is multi-lingual, multi-region, and built to scale across business units and geographies without additional configuration or pricing penalties.

We maintain ongoing partnerships with our customers through regular check-ins, strategy reviews, and continuous improvement initiatives. Our Customer Success team works closely with you to track progress, identify optimization opportunities, and ensure you're maximizing value from the platform.

For Category Managers, akirolabs provides structured workflows and AI-powered insights that boost productivity and strategy quality. CPOs gain visibility across all strategies and alignment with business goals. Procurement Excellence Teams can standardize best practices and scale capability development. Business Stakeholders benefit from early involvement and clear strategy communication through our One-Pager feature.

The platform includes embedded guides, step-by-step workflows, training resources, and digital nudges. Our Customer Success team also offers coaching and best-practice sessions to ensure teams adopt new ways of working effectively.

Customers have reported significant improvements in strategy development speed, stakeholder alignment, and value delivery beyond savings. The platform has helped teams digitalize strategic procurement workflows, accelerate strategy development and execution, enhance compliance and traceability, and boost category manager productivity.

No, akirolabs doesn't replace your existing tools. It acts as a strategic layer that sits upstream - seamlessly integrating with and complimenting your sourcing, supplier, analytics, or intake-to-pay systems among others to unlock greater value across the procurement lifecycle.

akirolabs is designed to guide teams at all maturity levels - from spreadsheet-driven teams looking to modernize, to mature CoEs scaling strategy globally. Our structured workflows, AI recommendations, and workbench help you scale strategic capability fast and offer value for every enterprise procurement team.

Yes. akirolabs is built with enterprise-grade security from day one. We support SSO, SCIM provisioning, role-based access, and audit trails. We're fully GDPR/FADP compliant, ISO 27001 and UKAS certified - with cloud hosting in secure, certified environments.

Implementation is quick and straightforward, typically taking just a few weeks. Our light-touch integration approach uses template CSV uploads for user lists, spend data, supplier lists, and category trees, as strategic work doesn't require real-time data.

No - akirolabs is category- and industry-agnostic. Whether you're managing direct materials, logistics, IT, marketing, or complex cross-functional spend, our platform adapts to your taxonomy and workflows.

Every customer gets a dedicated Customer Success Manager, full onboarding, and access to strategy coaching, training, and best-practice tips. You also get continuous support via our help desk for global teams or critical operations.

Every strategy in akirolabs is developed with business input through structured workflows and stakeholder engagement tools. Our Strategy One-Pager and governance features ensure strategies directly support overarching company goals like cost leadership, innovation, ESG, or risk mitigation.

akirolabs is built to be used by Category Managers, Strategic Buyers, Procurement Managers, Purchasing Managers, Sourcing Managers, CPOs, Procurement Excellence Professionals, and Transformation leaders. Business stakeholders - like Finance, Marketing, or R&D - can also collaborate within the platform for alignment and input. Everyone involved in building or reviewing category strategies benefits.

akirolabs is trusted and used by mid-size to large enterprises across industries - including pharmaceuticals, media, energy, manufacturing, financial services, and chemicals. If your organization is managing procurement across categories, regions, or business units, akirolabs is built for you.

akiroAssist is our proprietary AI engine designed specifically for procurement strategy. Unlike general-purpose AI, it’s trained on procurement logic, equipped with a prompt library, value levers, risk signals, and always-on strategy context. It enhances—not replaces—category managers by helping them move faster, spot risks, and surface smarter options without losing control.

The Category Strategy Workbench is the core engine of akirolabs — a guided, modular workspace that enables teams to analyze data, develop collaborative strategies, and ensure execution with measurable impact.The three phases — Analyze, Strategize, and Realize — reflect the complete strategy lifecycle: from insight generation, through structured planning, to execution and value tracking. This ensures continuity, governance, and business alignment throughout the strategic process.

Strategic Scenario Modeling in akirolabs allows procurement teams to visualize and evaluate the outcomes of various strategic options. This capability enables category managers to simulate multiple scenarios based on different value dimensions of business importance, facilitating informed trade-offs that align category strategies with overarching business objectives.

akiroAssist is our proprietary AI engine built on a specialized large language model (LLM) designed specifically for procurement. Rather than attempting to fully automate strategic decisions, akiroAssist augments human intelligence by providing tailored recommendations and strategic guidance throughout the strategy creation process, helping procurement professionals make better, more informed decisions.

The Strategy One-Pager simplifies communication between procurement teams and cross-functional stakeholders by translating complex strategies into clear, concise narratives aligned with business objectives. Using visual elements like charts and summaries, it ensures stakeholders from various departments can easily understand and engage with procurement strategies, fostering alignment and collaboration.

Unlike tools based on traditional frameworks like the Kraljic Matrix, akirolabs offers a transformative, business-driven methodology that repositions procurement as a strategic enabler. Our approach integrates holistic value dimensions into category strategies, prioritizing long-term impact over short-term savings to deliver 4.4x higher value through our industry-recognized Category Strategy Workbench.

Yes. akirolabs is designed to complement—not replace—your existing systems. We integrate via APIs or iFrames with tools such as spend analytics, supplier management, and intake-to-pay platforms to ensure seamless data flow and strategic alignment.