Cost Avoidance Agent
Handles supplier price change requests and negotiates outcomes within defined procurement authority.
Monitors the procurement inbox for supplier price change requests and evaluates each against price history, contract terms, and raw-material index movement before acting on a decision within defined authority. Outcomes are written back to the ERP and logged to the supplier profile.
- 1–3%
Cost defended
Of the spend the agent sees, 1–3% of price increases are blocked or reduced that would otherwise have hit your costs.
Monitors the procurement inbox for supplier requests
Reads every inbound price change request as it arrives, covering proposed changes to price, minimum order quantities, and payment terms. No in-scope request is left unprocessed.
Assesses whether the proposed change is justified
Checks each request against the supplier's contract position, price history, and the movement of the relevant raw-material index. Determines whether the requested increase is proportionate to underlying market conditions.
Negotiates with suppliers within its delegated mandate
Sends the opening response, handles counter-offers, and runs the exchange to resolution for requests inside its authority threshold. Escalates to the category manager when a request exceeds that threshold.
Updates agreed pricing in the system of record
Writes accepted rates back to the ERP at the point of resolution so active purchase orders reflect the agreed terms immediately.
Logs the outcome against the supplier profile
Records the negotiation history and final agreed terms to the supplier record so the commercial file reflects what was discussed and what was decided.
- Trigger
Monitors the procurement inbox for supplier requests
Reads every inbound price change request as it arrives, covering proposed changes to price, minimum order quantities, and payment terms. No in-scope request is left unprocessed.
- Step 1
Assesses whether the proposed change is justified
Checks each request against the supplier's contract position, price history, and the movement of the relevant raw-material index. Determines whether the requested increase is proportionate to underlying market conditions.
- Step 2
Negotiates with suppliers within its delegated mandate
Sends the opening response, handles counter-offers, and runs the exchange to resolution for requests inside its authority threshold. Escalates to the category manager when a request exceeds that threshold.
- Step 3
Updates agreed pricing in the system of record
Writes accepted rates back to the ERP at the point of resolution so active purchase orders reflect the agreed terms immediately.
- Resolution
Logs the outcome against the supplier profile
Records the negotiation history and final agreed terms to the supplier record so the commercial file reflects what was discussed and what was decided.
Supplier price responses sent without human effort
so that procurement staff are not pulled into routine back-and-forth on tail-spend requests, and can direct their time toward strategic sourcing and supplier escalations that require judgment.
Price changes accepted only when proportionality checks out
so that cost increases unsupported by raw-material movements are rejected or negotiated down, protecting margin on spend categories that would otherwise absorb unjustified inflation.
ERP pricing updated at point of resolution
so that purchase orders and cost rolls reflect agreed rates immediately, removing the lag between a negotiated outcome and an accurate system-of-record price.
- Read/write access to the ERP
- Connects to the ERP (e.g. Infor LN/M3/CloudSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, IFS Cloud, or SAP S/4HANA) to read open purchase orders, contracted pricing, supplier volumes, and material mappings, and to write back updated pricing on accepted changes. Without this connection the agent cannot execute decisions or keep pricing records current.
- Procurement inbox access
- Reads supplier price change requests directly from the procurement email inbox or supplier portal message queue. This is the agent's primary trigger: without inbox access it cannot detect incoming requests or send negotiation responses.
- Supplier and contract master data
- Pulls supplier profiles, price history, and contract terms from the supplier information management system or contract repository (e.g. Ivalua, Jaggaer, or a dedicated contract module within the ERP). Used to assess proportionality between the supplier's proposed increase and underlying raw-material movements and to determine what falls within autonomous authority.
- Commodity and raw-material price feed
- Reads current and historical raw-material index data from a market data feed or internal commodity tracking table. Required to compute the weighted raw-material delta against the supplier's claimed increase percentage. Without it the proportionality check cannot run.