How Staffbase built an AI-first procurement function with Vertice

Staffbase, an AI-native employee experience platform, manages a large software estate with a deliberately small procurement team. 

Before Vertice, requests arrived into procurement through Google Forms and Jira, while contract status was kept in shared spreadsheets dating back to 2019. The team could not be confident that the data was complete, and renewals would often be missed. 

"For every purchase and renewal, our procurement managers were making manual reference calls, and researching the tool on LinkedIn, forums and search engines to understand what other companies were paying. It was neither scalable nor reliable." Chris Barrett, Director, Head of Group Business & Corporate Operations

AI spend was harder still to track. Staffbase used various AI tools, including Anthropic, OpenAI, GitHub and Google, and usage and cost sat in each vendor’s own separate consoles, so basic budgeting questions meant reconciling numerous dashboards by hand. Meanwhile, costs were starting to escalate as usage became more prevalent.

Staffbase needed one platform on which to view spend, run procurement processes, improve deal quality and savings, and report on and control AI spend.

"The first thing I noticed was that it was a really clean piece of tech. Then I saw Vertice’s potential to give my procurement managers back the time they were spending on contract reviews and benchmark research, and deliver better results."

1. AI workflows

Every request now starts with a dynamic Vertice intake form. Purchases are then intelligently routed through the most appropriate approval workflows based on Staffbase’s criteria and policies. 

At every step of the process, stakeholders can use Vertice AI to pull in the information they need to make informed decisions. Procurement teams can query Vertice’s procurement intelligence dataset of 32k vendors’ price benchmarks and negotiation tactics to secure best prices and terms, while security and IT can gather insights into vendor’s risk profiles. 

“We use Vertice AI to query everything from deal status and next steps, to contract risk, pricing benchmarks and likely negotiation floors. It’s giving my team better answers for better decision-making, and an enormous amount of time back.”

For legal reviews, Vertice works alongside Staffbase’s Claude agents through Vertice’s MCP. The result is two layers of AI review. Vertice AI handles commercial terms, comparing billing, duration and terms versus what was agreed during the approval process, and the Claude agents act as a ‘fail-safe’, redlining MSAs where necessary according to Staffbase known preferences.

"The fact that we can connect directly into Claude through Vertice's MCP creates a single AI environment, purpose-built and singly-focused on delivering the best outcomes for Staffbase.”

2. One view of AI spend

To provide visibility and control of AI spend, Vertice's AI Cost Optimization dashboard connects to each of Staffbase's AI providers and creates a single view across them all, with usage and spend forecasts, commitment tracking, and drilldowns by tool, use case and model. 

Vertice AI then identifies the spend threats that need attention, such as a team’s or individual's model usage, or where commitments are at risk - with specific recommendations on how to rectify. 

"If I want to see what we're spending on AI, I can go to the AI Cost Optimization dashboard, see every connected tool and exactly what we're spending, and also review an AI summary of where spend is being wasted and exactly the steps we can take to optimize. It’s amazing - it’s saving us so much time, helping us figure out best pricing, and even measuring the ROI of AI."

The platform also uses the Vertice dataset to spot where a Staffbase contract includes terms or rates that the market has since improved on, with recommendations on how to renegotiate early before the renewal.

3. Expert negotiation

Operating on the same platform as the Staffbase team, Vertice now negotiates 95% of Staffbase's tail spend contracts directly. 

Meanwhile, on strategic agreements where Staffbase wants to retain the relationships, the Staffbase team leads, with a dedicated Vertice buyer advising on approach and supplying benchmarks. 

“Vertice’s procurement team helps us in every purchase. They have taken on the transactional but still important tail spend agreements from end to end, freeing up my team for the crucial, strategic negotiations with critical vendors. And for those purchases, Vertice is still supporting us, with negotiation guidance, feedback and benchmark data.”

When Staffbase was first considering Vertice, an initial audit showed a potential for savings on six agreements within six months, one of them by more than 50%.

Since going live, Vertice is now averaging a completed contract every two weeks, four of which with hard cost savings of over 50%, and even reducing one contract by more than 62%.

“The benefit of Vertice is that we have a single AI platform for approvals, contract storage, negotiations, benchmarks, and spend visibility - and on top of that, the Vertice procurement team delivers time and hard cost savings.”

Through faster intelligent approval processes, access to benchmarking data, and the ability to use Vertice AI to query anything from prices and risk to approval status, Staffbase has managed to save its procurement team over 650 hours a year.  

“Vertice has saved 650 man hours a year, which is just phenomenal. With the combination of the platform, Vertice AI and the negotiation support, I can free up my team to focus on the more strategic initiatives, and have Vertice focus on the day-to-day.”