Opella and Candex: Simplifying Spend, Maintaining Control
Candex’s Jeremy Lappin and Opella’s Lyvio Frimat discuss how their partnership simplifies procurement by streamlining tail spend management
TL;DR
- Opella, post-separation from Sanofi, needed to address its inherited procurement landscape, which was ill-suited for an agile consumer health business.
- Tail spend was fragmented and largely invisible, consuming team bandwidth and creating compliance risks.
- Candex, a platform for managing small and one-time vendors, was integrated to control this segment without hindering broader procurement architecture development.
- The partnership separates tail spend transactions from complex contracts, maintaining governance while reducing process burden.
- Benefits include capturing off-system spend, providing a frictionless route for users, allowing procurement professionals to focus on strategic tasks, and supporting Opella's ProcureTech goals by handling payments without unnecessary ERP entries.
- Future phases explore managing higher-risk spend like maverick spend, deeper analytics integration, and enhanced supplier relationship management.
- The success is attributed to strong people management, mutual understanding, and shared clarity between Opella and Candex.