23% average SaaS savings and 100% confidence in procurement processes

‍The Challenge

Following the merger of Mr Yum and me&u in 2023, me&u is the global leader of at-table ordering platforms for restaurants and the wider hospitality industry, processing over $2bn in dining transactions annually and has a client base of over 6,000 bars, restaurants and other establishments.

The merger brought a new set of operational challenges, especially regarding software.

The finance team at me&u quickly realized that a perfect storm had been created: a plethora of duplicated tools - over 50 - across the two previous businesses, and no procurement and software management process.

And the situation would only get worse. Team members were independently purchasing software, and negotiations were handled at a departmental level with insufficient oversight, often leading to further duplication, overspend, underuse and auto-renewals. 

“We didn’t really have a procurement process. Anyone could go and purchase new software, there weren’t too many approvals happening, and lots of duplicates created a big pain point.”
Keeley Purdue, Senior Management Accountant

The Solution

me&u quickly began looking for a partner that could streamline its procurement process and manage its sprawling SaaS stack - and found Vertice.

“Vertice came in, took control and improved our process - it was a lot of weight off of our shoulders. Being able to offload all of that onto experts has been really helpful.”

Vertice began with a detailed audit of me&u’s software stack. Vertice uncovered 129 contracts and initially found that, by consolidating duplicated contracts and renegotiating core ones, they could realize savings of 14%, as well as save me&u over 480 hours in negotiating. Also, by integrating with their SSO, Vertice could dramatically improve user experience.

The platform immediately provided the finance team with visibility into the entire tech stack, including each tool’s usage and upcoming renewal dates. 

"It’s not just for finance, but all function leaders can receive notifications and go into the platform, see the contracts they are responsible for and their due tasks, including if they’re holding up a process - it’s so much better for cash flow management.”

As a result of this deep-dive audit, Vertice and me&u worked together to implement new custom SaaS procurement workflows for new purchases and renewals  to make procurement processes more uniform, with more oversight and formal stakeholder approvals, including legal, security and financial. 

“We've now gone from nothing to having a really thorough process. Having Vertice come in and take control and handle the workflow setup to incorporate the process, stages and approvals we needed - it has taken a lot of weight off our shoulders. Being able to offload that onto Vertice, the experts, has been really helpful.”

The Results

The results were fast and measurable. Within the first year of the partnership, Vertice helped Me&U achieve 6.1x ROI and reduce their spend on contracts - including a significant one-off saving of 44% from a core CRM contract. 

On average, savings across all contracts hit 23%. 

These savings were in part down to Vertice’s price benchmarking data and vendor intel, which me&u could consult to guide their purchasing and renewal decisions, and which Vertice’s expert buyers used to secure maximum savings.

“Being able to go into a negotiation with a lot of confidence around what price point is on offer and what you can push for is a number one advantage, and that’s what Vertice gives you”.
Brianna Thomas, CFO

But the benefits went far beyond cost reductions.

That sense of confidence, and the impact of working with Vertice, means me&u now considers Vertice an essential part of its procurement operations.