How One Platform Helped Axpo Standardize Procurement Strategy — Across the Board

About Axpo

Axpo is a Switzerland-based energy company operating in over 30 countries, specializing in sustainable electricity production, energy trading, and innovation. It serves industrial, commercial, and utility clients through a decentralized structure across diverse markets and business units.

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“akirolabs isn’t just a tool or platform .. it’s a partner helping us build strategic alignment, collaboration, and smarter decision-making across Axpo Procurement.”

— Samuel Maier, Axpo Group

Axpo’s procurement organization was facing deep structural challenges rooted in its decentralized business model and an increasingly complex energy market. Multiple business units—each with distinct stakeholders, technologies, and market focus—managed procurement independently, resulting in duplicated efforts, inconsistent strategies, and minimal knowledge-sharing. Teams used disparate tools, methodologies, and even terminology, leading to limited synergy and inefficient collaboration.

Despite the existence of a three-phase process ("Analyze, Strategize, Realize"), its execution varied widely across teams. Category managers often defaulted to tactical buying over long-term planning, burdened by operational tasks and relying on disconnected Excel sheets, Word documents, and PowerPoint decks. Strategic work was frequently undermined by ad hoc processes, unclear expectations, and a lack of unified communication—both internally and with suppliers.

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Our biggest problem wasn’t a lack of tools—it was a lack of cohesion. Everyone had their own way of working, even when addressing the same suppliers.”

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The fragmentation was especially problematic in critical, supplier-dominant categories like transformers and PV panels, where Axpo’s leverage was limited. In such markets, strategic alignment and unified messaging are essential to creating value, yet Axpo struggled to present a cohesive front. Stakeholders lacked a shared understanding of what category strategy meant in practice, and engagement across regions remained difficult.

Recognizing that continuing to operate in silos was unsustainable, Axpo saw the urgent need for transformation—not just in tools, but in mindset, structure, and scalability. The goal was to establish a shared framework that enabled strategic decision-making, improved visibility, and empowered category managers to focus on driving value rather than simply placing orders. To remain competitive and resilient, procurement needed to evolve into a more structured, collaborative, and continuously strategic function.

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“We realized that procurement can’t be reactive anymore. Strategy isn’t a quarterly task—it’s a living, breathing process. akirolabs helps us keep it that way.”

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Axpo partnered with akirolabs to bring greater clarity, consistency, and strategic depth to its category management practices. What stood out was akirolabs’ close alignment with Axpo’s established “Analyze, Strategize, Realize” methodology—offered in a more structured, collaborative, and digitally integrated format. The platform’s intuitive interface, powerful scenario-based modeling, and AI-assisted insights enabled procurement teams to move beyond static plans and develop flexible, data-driven strategies.

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“What stood out was how akirolabs matched our methodological needs —but also digitized and augmented it in a way that made it easier, faster, and smarter to use.”

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akirolabs supported Axpo’s goal of working seamlessly across both global and local levels. Teams could co-create a central strategy—such as for PV panels—and then easily clone and adapt it to reflect regional or business unit needs. This ensured strategic consistency while preserving functional and local nuances.

The platform fostered deep collaboration across roles and geographies, empowering everyone from junior category leads to experienced managers, engineers, and cross-functional stakeholders to work within a unified framework. Built-in collaboration tools and modular analytics enhanced strategic co-creation and accelerated onboarding for users less familiar with formal strategy development.

Crucially, akirolabs was introduced not just as a tool, but as a partner. A dedicated success team supported training, guided change management, and tailored the implementation pace to Axpo’s needs—ensuring sustainable adoption in a complex, regulated industry. This structured yet flexible approach strengthened alignment, efficiency, and adaptability across Axpo’s procurement organization.

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“akirolabs didn’t just bring a platform—it brought methodology, structure, and the ability to truly collaborate across borders.”

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The implementation of akirolabs brought immediate clarity and structure to Axpo’s procurement operations, laying the foundation for lasting strategic transformation. One of the earliest and most important wins was alignment: a shared language and consistent methodology that now unites business units, enabling coherent strategy-building and significantly reducing friction in internal discussions and decision-making.

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“One of the first wins? A shared language. That alone changed how our teams worked with each other.”

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Category managers no longer rebuild strategies from scratch—instead, they follow a structured, guided process supported by templates, modular toolkits, and AI-driven insights. This framework has empowered collaboration across departments: technical experts, engineers, sales, and buyers can all contribute meaningfully to strategy development without being overwhelmed by complexity.

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“I see junior category managers now creating solid strategies with confidence. That was unthinkable before.”

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“The AI support is impressive—it gives you speed and structure, but it doesn’t replace judgment. You’re still in the driver’s seat.”

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The ability to create global strategies and adapt them to local realities through cloning and segmentation has proven invaluable—especially for a company managing both utility-scale and residential PV projects, as well as complex categories like hydrogen. Planning that once took weeks can now be iterated quickly and confidently.

akirolabs' scenario modeling and realization tracking features have further elevated Axpo’s strategic capabilities. Teams are now able to plan, implement, and monitor strategic actions effectively, ensuring that strategies are not just theoretical but fully realized in execution. AI-powered insights and real-time scenario modeling have also helped Axpo become more proactive in navigating market volatility and geopolitical shifts, shifting from a reactive posture to one of strategic foresight.

Over time, these capabilities have driven a broader cultural shift. Procurement is no longer seen as a transactional or support function—it is increasingly recognized as a key enabler of business resilience, innovation, and sustainability. akirolabs has evolved from a software platform into a trusted strategic partner, supporting Axpo’s vision of a more connected, agile, and forward-looking procurement organization.
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“We’re not a speedboat—we’re a tanker. Change takes time, but akirolabs adapted to our pace and helped anchor the transformation.”

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