How Bright Peak Therapeutics Built Their Procurement Process from the Ground Up + Update

Company: Bright Peak Therapeutics
Locations: Switzerland, USA
Industry: Biotech
Website: https://brightpeaktx.com/
Using Precoro since: October 2020
Users: 22 users as of 2021; 57 users as of 2023
Client’s evaluation: 8/10
Featuring: Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics

Getting to Know Bright Peak Therapeutics

Bright Peak is a privately-owned biotechnology company based in San Diego, CA and Basel, Switzerland.

This international research-driven organization is dedicated to developing novel therapies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Using its proprietary Enhanced Design and Combine (EDC) chemistry platform developed by the Bode research group at ETH Zurich, the company synthesizes cytokines and other proteins with atomic precision.

The resulting molecules can be used as stand-alone therapeutics or conjugated as payloads to antibodies, generating enhanced functionality for existing drugs.

Bright Peak Therapeutics was seeded and launched by Versant Ventures at Ridgeline Discovery laboratories and is now supported by a $107 Million Series B financing from a syndicate of the world’s leading biotech industry investors.

Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics, has kindly agreed to share his team’s experience setting up a procurement management process from scratch using Precoro.

Mr. Beauchamp is a pharmaceutical industry leader and a former lab scientist who now helps a new generation of scientists get their work done without worrying about the details of procurement and operations logistics.

Bright Peak’s Procurement Background

As a new start-up, Bright Peak didn't have a procurement system in place. So, whenever the employees needed something, they used to order products online.

People did keep their own purchase records, but it wasn't part of an organized company process.

As a result, it wasn't always clear whether the invoices that came in should be paid or not. There was no central repository of all the information involved in purchasing, so it was also difficult to track who was buying what for which projects.

This was the first problem Mr. Beauchamp decided to fix when he joined the company.

"The invoice would come in, and the admin assistant would walk around the office with the invoice, asking, 'Does this belong to anybody?'
Sometimes they would find the right person, and sometimes they wouldn't."

Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics

Early on, the procurement team of Dave Cardino - VP of Finance - and Mr. Beauchamp decided that they needed a solution for purchasing operations but didn't need the integrated systems that do everything and anything.

They had had previous experience with more complex business suite solutions but hadn’t implemented a procurement management system before.

The team could have created a homemade system with pen and paper, but they needed a straightforward, easy-to-use, and effective solution that could scale with the company’s growth for years to come.

The initial spend management system was basic, good at recording purchase orders, but some required elements weren’t recorded in the system, and the reporting process was complicated.

Procurement Solution Selection Procedure

The main reason for switching the system was disappointing customer service by the company they previously used. Bright Peak was getting no response to queries and soon became quite suspicious about whether it was a viable service.

So the team started looking elsewhere for a company they could trust. The organization consulted with colleagues, conducted online research, and checked out comparison websites for procurement software.

Eventually, it came down to 2-3 options, one of which was Precoro. The team was encouraged by how Precoro employees dealt with their initial queries and the scope of the information they were given from the start.

Researching Precoro on LinkedIn and other media and then communicating with our employees convinced the team that Precoro consists of professional and organized people, in Ms. Beauchamp's words.

The other essential criteria were simplicity and ease of use of the product. The company wanted a tool to organize their procurement process but wasn’t interested in all the paid extras alternative vendors offered.

Other winning arguments were the case studies on the blog about actual companies using the system and the opportunity to get references from Precoro's existing customers.

Onboarding

Time and time again, a guided free trial experience with our Sales team has proven to be the optimal way to see if Precoro is a good match for an organization.

After the demo with Precoro Account Executives, Mr. Beauchamp introduced the system to everybody on the team, and people had a quick play with it.

Then, Olena Dekhtiaruk, the Customer Success Manager at Precoro assigned to onboard Bright Peak, gave a 1-hour presentation on using the system. Olena conducted training for the first 14 users and answered all their questions.

After that, getting the system set up and introducing the administrative employees to it was a smooth and intuitive process. The implementation time estimate of 3 weeks was met to a T.

The system is really very intuitive. I would say people are using it straight away without any particular problems.

I recommend the system to everybody that I think could benefit from it.

Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics

According to Mr. Beauchamp, Olena is super responsive. People enjoy using the Precoro chat facility if they run into a problem, and most issues are solved quickly.

Downsides

1. Exporting the data from the old system
Precoro is constantly developing new integration options to seamlessly sync with as many business tools as possible, but some connections require an API to run smoothly.

Mr. Beauchamp and his team have decided to keep the data on past POs and invoices in the old system because exporting it from there didn’t seem worth the effort.

2. Getting product catalogs from suppliers
Bright Peak works with major chemical suppliers with hundreds of thousands of items in their catalogs. Integrating those into Precoro would make processes a lot easier. But, unfortunately, none of the suppliers were ready to provide the company with electronic PunchOut product catalogs.

3. The initial slowdown in the process
Previously, the only administrative task in terms of procurement was to pay the invoice. However, with the new system up and running, this range increased, which slowed down the process at first.

On the Bright Side

We know what has been delivered, we know what has been invoiced and paid, and we can get that information out of the system. With our previous system, we couldn't do that. We had to go through everything by hand, and organizing it just wasn't possible by paper. It would take days.

We can do this in seconds now, and we have complete confidence that the numbers are actually correct. The quality, the organization [have] improved beyond measure, and you can quote me on that.

Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics

(so, naturally, we quoted him 😉)

1. New qualitative level of procurement management
The quality of the procurement operations increased tenfold, according to Mr. Beauchamp.

The information the team gets out of the system helps manage operations correctly, enables the management to optimize the whole procurement process, and gives them confidence in it that they didn't have before.

2. Automated reporting
Bright Peak administration endorsed the ability to generate reports quickly within the system, which significantly optimized the information flow.

3. Eliminated invoice duplication
Mr. Beauchamp has noticed that invoice duplication doesn't happen anymore. There were a few examples previously when invoices were lost or paid twice.

But with Precoro, users get a notification when trying to pay for the invoice associated with the same purchase order for the second time.

4. Optimized approval workflow
When it comes to the approval process, which was relatively informal at Bright Peak at first, a proper workflow setup in the system made team communication more efficient.

Mr. Beauchamp also pointed out that earlier it was impossible to process invoices in some systems without connecting them to a PO first. Now, in Precoro, there's a separate approval workflow for invoices, which the team finds exceptionally convenient.

"[Precoro] makes a difference in that we have the information organized. If we need to find an invoice, a receipt, a quotation, an order — all the documentation is in one place associated with a purchase order number.

It just makes the whole organization of the procurement process hugely easier, mostly for the administrative people involved and for the users.

Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics

As the company grows, the management plans to add all newcomers in both Basel and San Diego to the system, as everybody in the company needs to make orders.

The next steps also include integrating Precoro with NetSuite over the coming months.

2023 Update: 2 years with Precoro

Two years have passed since we first published this case study, and now we’re back with exciting updates. Bright Peak has been continuously growing and hiring more biology researchers and business development team members. Since 2021, the company doubled its size and, as a result, improved its purchasing process to make it more convenient for a larger number of team members and to accommodate the growing need for supplies.

We had the opportunity to discuss these changes with Izabela Zöger, Finance Manager at Bright Peak. Ms. Zöger joined the company in 2021 and she regularly uses Precoro to approve or add purchase requests and receipts as well as monitor the direct feed between Precoro and their accounting software, NetSuite.

Recalling her own experience starting using Precoro, Ms. Zöger says that the system has been incredibly user-friendly and easy to navigate. She also highlights that the rest of the team feels the same. In fact, the system's simplicity and transparency in managing the purchasing process have been the main reasons why they decided to stay with Precoro during their rapid growth and even while they made major changes to their purchasing process.

The Current Purchasing Process

According to Ms. Zöger, all their scientists can create a purchase request, which then goes through the approval process. Once approved, the purchase request is converted into a purchase order and sent to suppliers. When the goods arrive, the purchase order can be updated and the final step is to create a receipt, which will migrate to NetSuite.

Interestingly, in the Switzerland entity, the company doesn't collect any delivery notes, so the receipt created in Precoro serves as the main indication that the goods arrived. Ms. Zöger notes that recently they had an audit and these receipts were accepted as sufficient documents. Additionally, Ms. Zöger adds that the audit went quite smoothly and the process they established with Precoro and NetSuite was confirmed to be efficient.

Now let’s consider how exactly the procurement process at Bright Peak has changed over the past two years:

• At first, the accounting was done outside of the organization by an external specialist who used his own software. Now Bright Peak utilizes NetSuite which has an integration with Precoro, enabling migration of documents between two systems.
• Now teams at Bright Peak use Precoro for creating and approving purchase requests, purchase orders, and receipts while OCR and matching of invoices are performed in NetSuite.
• Bright Peak doesn't use Precoro for reporting. In the past, the external accountant worked on the month-end or year-end reports while Precoro reports occasionally could be used for the soft monthly closing. Ever since the company implemented accounting software, reports have been done there.

Integration with NetSuite

We were interested to hear Bright Peak's feedback on the integration process and learn what challenges they faced in this regard. First, the company implemented NetSuite as its new accounting software.

Then, Bright Peak closely collaborated with the Precoro team and the local NetSuite team to enable an effective direct feed between the two systems. Ms. Zöger highlights that Olena Dekhtiaruk, their dedicated Customer Success Manager at Precoro, was very responsive, and Precoro, in general, was highly supportive during the integration, as Bright Peak also needed additional assistance with rebooking all the old purchase orders from the old system and transferring them to Precoro (we'll explore how this process was handled in the next section).

"If I talk about Olena [Customer Success Manager at Precoro], she's the best. I wish I could work with her on every single implementation.

Certain things needed to be customized in the background [by Precoro] for us to allow this direct feed. It took some time for sure but I think it was a good experience. I've worked on other implementations with different systems and I have to say this one was one of my best experiences."

Izabela Zöger, Finance Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics

When asked about the most challenging aspect of the integration, Ms. Zöger says that doing taxes in the system was a bit tricky, but they found an efficient way to work with it. Currently, all purchase orders migrate from Precoro to NetSuite at net value and then the taxes are applied in NetSuite. This way is also simpler for scientists who don't have to keep track of various taxes in different regions to create a purchase order.

Overcoming Initial Challenges

Two years ago during a case study interview, Jeremy Beauchamp, Operations Manager at Bright Peak Therapeutics, pointed out three challenges that Bright Peak faced while implementing Precoro. Ms. Zöger shared the progress on them.

1. Exporting the data from the old system
The financial team wanted to ensure consistency across POs made in the old system and those processed in the new one, which now included dedicated lines for departments and projects. When they first switched to Precoro, this wasn’t easy to tackle.

Fortunately, according to Ms. Zöger, this is no longer a problem. The Precoro team managed to repost all of their POs – over 500 of them! – in the system. Thanks to their efforts, the Bright Peak team didn’t have to go through the entire process again of recreating and reapproving all 500+ documents.

2. Getting product catalogs from suppliers
When Bright Peak’s suppliers weren’t able to provide electronic PunchOut product catalogs to integrate those into Precoro, the company initially wanted to focus on developing an ERP system and implement internal control over its goods. They envisioned it as a digital warehouse where goods would be scanned and later scientists would be able to find the product by entering its code (some items are sourced from various suppliers with different identification numbers, which makes it hard to properly track them).

However, they decided such a system would be too complex, especially given the size of the company. Instead, Bright Peak appointed an office manager responsible for overseeing laboratory supplies and this approach proves to be efficient.

3. The initial slowdown in the process
Ms. Zöger highlights that internal communication played a crucial role in addressing concerns regarding time-consuming aspects, particularly the approval process. The entire team is now well-informed and fully understands the purchasing process. Plus, the system promptly notifies all approvers when action is needed. As a result, the company no longer encounters any issues with delay.

Expanding a business oftentimes brings new challenges, but luckily Bright Peak Therapeutics has successfully overcome them. We here at Precoro are happy to help them resolve any arising issues.

Key Takeaways

Before Precoro

• Unscalable system limited to PO recording
• Customer service was not helpful
• No centralized record of purchases
• Hard-to-track orders and spending
• Duplicate and overdue invoices

With Precoro

• Flexible system covering the whole procure-to-pay process
• Dedicated Customer Success Manager that responds promptly
• Full purchasing transparency
• Complete control over the purchasing operations
• Fast document approvals
• 3-way matching for POs, invoices, and receipts
• No invoice duplication or payment delays