AI for manufacturing procurement: JAGGAER vs. Ivalua

Manufacturing procurement leaders face pressure to balance cost optimization with quality assurance while managing increasingly complex supply chains. CPO at Bulgari, Matteo Perondi, says: “Procurement’s role is to be in the middle, always ensuring that there is a good balance between speed and perfection in everything we do.”

Rising material costs and supply chain disruptions have intensified these challenges. Manufacturing companies face cost pressure from inflation and geopolitical factors, while customer demand for faster delivery continues to grow. Traditional manual procurement processes cannot scale to meet these dual pressures of cost control and operational agility.

AI-powered platforms like JAGGAER and Ivalua automate procurement workflows and provide visibility into spend and suppliers. Both platforms represent leading solutions in manufacturing procurement AI, each with distinct approaches to autonomous sourcing, contract intelligence, and spend optimization.

The platforms differ significantly in their architectural approaches: JAGGAER emphasizes deep ERP integration and pre-built manufacturing workflows, while Ivalua prioritizes configurability for complex production environments. 

Both support modular implementation strategies, enabling organizations to start with high-impact use cases such as supplier risk management or direct materials optimization before expanding to comprehensive source-to-pay automation.

This JAGGAER vs. Ivalua comparison evaluates both platforms across manufacturing-specific criteria: bill-of-materials (BOM) management capabilities, supplier quality integration, direct materials optimization, and production planning synchronization. We provide a decision-making framework with use cases for each platform.

We employ Xenoss extensive experience implementing AI-powered procurement solutions for manufacturing clients, including ERP-to-platform integrations, custom AI agent development, and multi-site deployment strategies.

Manufacturing procurement challenges and how to solve them with a unified AI for procurement system

86% of CPOs plan to improve procurement processes with technology to address the many difficulties they face daily. Here are some of them: 

Patchwork of legacy systems and processes

Separate software for materials sourcing, supplier management, contract management, purchasing order (PO) creation, and supplier selection and negotiation leads to data duplication, inconsistencies, and inefficient spend analysis. Consolidating all data into a single source-to-pay (S2P) platform enables procurement leaders to optimize costs, strengthen supplier relationships, and reduce administrative overhead.

Manual supplier management

Manual supplier oversight creates blind spots in quality metrics, delivery performance, and compliance tracking. Use of AI in procurement for automated supplier management helps provide real-time scorecards tracking key manufacturing metrics, including parts-per-million defect rates, on-time delivery performance, and regulatory compliance status. These systems enable predictive identification of supplier risks before they impact production schedules.

Dark purchasing or maverick spending

These non-tracked expenses quietly drain companies’ budgets. They often occur due to complex, tedious procurement cycles. S2P systems can flag these dark purchases and define their share within total company spending through spend visibility dashboards. Plus, when procurement becomes easier and more automated, maverick spending naturally declines.

Shadow AI use in procurement teams

Your procurement and sourcing teams most likely are already using AI to draft request for proposals (RFPs), validate contracts, or compare suppliers. This shadow usage of artificial intelligence in procurement poses data governance risks, particularly for sensitive supplier information, pricing data, and competitive intelligence. AI procurement platforms provide controlled AI capabilities with built-in data protection, audit trails, and role-based access controls.

Planned vs. real business outcomes from AI adoption in procurement

The Economist reveals that process and cost optimization are among the top benefits of integrating artificial intelligence in procurement. AI-enhanced procurement software also helps sourcing leads improve user experience and automate source-to-contract processes beyond expectations.

Manufacturing organizations report average efficiency gains of 29% versus projected 26%, while supplier relationship management improvements reached 44% compared to planned 18% targets.

Set your AI goals around measurable process gains, but be ready for broader strategic improvements.

These manufacturing procurement challenges require purpose-built AI platforms with deep industry expertise. The following analysis examines how JAGGAER and Ivalua address these specific requirements through their technical architectures, manufacturing-focused capabilities, and proven implementation methodologies.

JAGGAER ONE: Unified source-to-pay system with embedded AI

Core offering:

JAGGAER ONE is an all-in-one source-to-pay (S2P) software for strategic sourcing, spend management, supplier management, contract management, supplier risk scoring, and supply chain efficiency.

AI-powered manufacturing сapabilities:

The platform offers a wide range of AI capabilities to:

• enable real-time predictive analytics to forecast delivery, manage inventory, and monitor product quality 
• perform a comprehensive spend analysis and identify savings opportunities
• conduct a supplier risk assessment
• fully automate invoicing and payment
• recommend purchases
• detect fraudulent activities
• request contract information via chatbot (“chat with your contract” feature)

JAGGAER also includes an embedded multi-agent orchestrator, JAI, which breaks procurement workflows into tasks and assigns them to specific AI agents. For instance, a negotiation agent can perform the following task: “Use live market intel to lock in better [supplier] teams before competitors”. 

Each agent possesses domain-specific capabilities optimized for manufacturing procurement scenarios. The Economist predicts that agentic AI is the next big theme in procurement.

Security and data privacy:

JAGGAER ensures end-to-end data security and privacy in full compliance with GDPR and other industry-specific regulations. The platform is hosted on AWS and tier-3 colocation data centers, with data stored in both single-tenant and multi-tenant cloud environments.

To maintain and support certain platform features, JAGGAER engages a limited number of third-party sub-processors. Although these providers undergo strict security audits and compliance checks, their involvement introduces a minor residual risk related to third-party access, a consideration procurement leaders should factor into vendor evaluation.

Implementation:

JAGGAER ONE is a plug-and-play solution with vast integration capabilities. The platform provides REST APIs and standard connectors for seamless integration with manufacturing systems, including SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and specialized manufacturing execution systems (MES).

A recent G2 customer review demonstrates the platform’s efficiency: 

Everything can be tracked, so it’s very useful for auditing purposes. It’s very fast to implement and includes many useful and complex features. Can be integrated with ERPs and many other platforms.

Manufacturing implementation case study: Rolls-Royce Power Systems

Rolls-Royce Power Systems chose JAGGAER ONE for its MTU Friedrichshafen business division in Germany. This division develops high-speed engines and propulsion systems for marine, industrial, and defense applications. Their procurement offices span nine locations, with more than 120 operators responsible for purchasing materials across 45 commodities, managing an annual spend of €1 billion.

Challenge:

The MTU division needed a unified platform to access supplier and pricing data in a single source of truth, rather than four distributed SAP systems. Due to this fragmentation, data often gets duplicated. One supplier could be listed in several systems with different numbers, confusing sourcing operators.

Solution:

They unified supplier master data and pricing information across all locations, implemented a native SAP integration to enable real-time data synchronization, and standardized workflows for consistent procurement processes across geographic operations.

Results:

• Elimination of duplicate supplier entries, improving data accuracy and auditability.
• Centralized access to spend and pricing information across 45 commodities, enabling category managers to identify and negotiate cross-plant savings.
• Faster decision-making: sourcing teams now operate from a single version of truth, cutting time spent reconciling data by up to 30%.

The implementation established a data foundation for procurement automation and AI-driven sourcing optimization, positioning Rolls-Royce for advanced supply chain intelligence capabilities.

Ivalua: Deep configurability for complex manufacturing operations

Core offering:

Ivalua delivers source-to-pay functionality through a configurable platform architecture enabling deep customization without extensive development resources. 

The low-code/no-code framework allows for modeling complex procurement workflows, adapting to evolving production requirements, and integrating specialized industry processes, including bill-of-materials (BOM) lifecycle management, advanced product quality planning (APQP), and new product introduction (NPI) workflows.

Core manufacturing differentiators include multi-level BOM visibility, supplier collaboration portals for design changes, and configurable quality management processes that support compliance with automotive, aerospace, and industrial equipment standards.

AI-powered manufacturing сapabilities:

The platform’s AI capabilities include GenAI agents. In contrast to JAGGAER’s JAI, Ivalua provides an intelligent AI assistant, IVA, that businesses can configure to fit their needs.

It allows users to extract data from documents and contracts in a chatbot format. IVA also helps in proofreading supplier messages, generating improvement plans, creating RFPs, and conducting market research.

The platform’s LLM-agnostic architecture supports multiple AI models (OpenAI, Anthropic, and Ivalua’s proprietary models), enabling organizations to optimize AI capabilities based on specific manufacturing requirements and data sensitivity considerations.

Security and data privacy:

Ivalua offers a multi-instance SaaS architecture (unlike JAGGAER’s cloud-based multi-tenant architecture), meaning each customer has a dedicated application and database instance, reducing risks of cross-tenant data exposure.

The platform also complies with GDPR and implements privacy-by-design principles, ensuring that only customers themselves can access, process, and manage their personal data. A hardware security module (HSM) is used to encrypt data at rest, and AES-256 to encrypt data in transit.

Implementation:

Ivalua’s unlimited customization comes at a price, according to this review:

The flexibility of Ivalua sometimes comes with complexity. The initial implementation can take time, and integrations — especially in large, enterprise environments — require very clearly defined requirements. It’s not plug-and-play, and the learning curve can be steep for administrators and end-users. Maintenance and ongoing changes may require technical support, and without proper planning, the system can become overwhelming or overly complex.

To manage Ivalua’s complexity, manufacturers usually adopt Ivalua in phases, starting with sourcing or supplier management modules before expanding to the full source-to-pay suite. This stepwise rollout helps teams learn the system gradually while avoiding feature overload.

Real-life application with proven ROI: A composite study by Forrester

Forrester evaluated the impact of Ivalua across four organizations, assessing the platform’s return on investment and efficiency gains in its Total Economic Impact (TEI) study.

Challenges:

Organizations used up to 6 procurement systems and multiple ERP systems to manage sourcing, contracting, suppliers, and invoicing separately. Some of these solutions were legacy software that required manual workarounds, such as managing suppliers in spreadsheets or keeping records on shared drives. Lack of standardization and automation in procurement prolonged the supplier onboarding times. 

Solution: 

All four companies under study adopted the Ivalua platform for three years to improve spend and sourcing visibility, unify all procurement data, and automate cumbersome manual processes. 

Results:

• 393% return on investment (ROI) over three years.
• Payback period of under 6 months.
• $25.5 million in net present value (NPV) benefits achieved through automation and process optimization.
• 80% faster supplier onboarding, with cycle times dropping from weeks to hours.
• $24.2 million in savings with enhanced spend visibility.

We can source, negotiate, and contract in days now — it used to take weeks. That speed means we can respond to the business in real time.

Amanda Christian, senior VP of purchasing and contracts, CACI

Advantages of Ivalua vs. advantages of JAGGAER: Head-to-head comparison

We are examining technical architectures, implementation methodologies, and operational fit for complex production environments. Our assessment framework prioritizes manufacturing procurement challenges, including BOM management, supplier quality integration, and production synchronization requirements.

Comparison by implementation factors for manufacturers

While both platforms offer full source-to-pay coverage, JAGGAER vs. Ivalua cost models and rollout approaches differ. The table below outlines typical parameters for manufacturing deployments, based on publicly available pricing data and reported implementation averages.

Note: Pricing and deployment timeline vary significantly based on manufacturing complexity, number of plants, supplier count, and BOM depth

Feature comparison

Both platforms provide the same set of features across the entire source-to-pay chain, enabling procurement teams to eliminate the need for any other procurement solutions. But each platform has a specific aspect that differentiates it within each feature. 

The table below is based on platforms’ websites, whitepapers, demos, reviews, and industry analyst comparisons from Gartner, G2, and SelectHub.

JAGGAER ONE leans into pre-defined templates, pre-vetted suppliers, and AI-driven workflows to simplify procurement and take the load off procurement teams. Plus, because of the integration of many external sub-processors we mentioned earlier, JAGGAER offers a broader range of capabilities within each feature, particularly in invoicing and payments.

By combining BOM and contract lifecycle management with a 360° supplier view, Ivalua connects the dots across sourcing, contracting, and supplier performance. This helps manufacturers identify non-obvious cost patterns and optimization opportunities for a more strategic, data-driven approach to procurement. In particular, this Gartner review emphasizes the platform’s cohesiveness.

Comparison by business problem

Beyond feature checklists, manufacturers choose procurement platforms to solve tangible business problems. The comparison below outlines how JAGGAER ONE and Ivalua differ in addressing the most common operational challenges, data fragmentation, slow decision cycles, limited scalability, and uneven user adoption.

Both platforms aim to create a connected and data-driven procurement environment, but take different paths:

• JAGGAER ONE focuses on depth: strong system integration, direct-materials automation, and control over complex processes.
• Ivalua emphasizes agility: simpler configuration, broader accessibility, and faster alignment across teams.

Manufacturing procurement transformation decision framework

Manufacturing procurement platform selection requires a systematic evaluation of organizational readiness, technical architecture requirements, and strategic transformation objectives.

When JAGGAER makes sense for manufacturers

Choose JAGGAER ONE if you have:

• Annual procurement spend more than $200 million with complex supplier ecosystems spanning multiple commodity categories
• Multi-site manufacturing operations requiring standardized procurement processes across 3+ facilities
• Enterprise ERP environments heavily invested in SAP or Oracle ecosystems, requiring native integration

Technical architecture and integration needs:

• Complex BOM management: Organizations managing 500+ unique components per product with multi-tier supplier dependencies
• Quality-critical industries: Automotive, aerospace, and medical device manufacturers requiring stringent APQP compliance, supplier certification management, and PPAP documentation management
• Legacy system integration: Companies needing to unify data from 4+ procurement systems while maintaining existing ERP investments

Strategic transformation objectives:

• AI-driven procurement optimization: Organizations seeking autonomous sourcing decisions, predictive supplier risk management, and intelligent contract analysis
• Process standardization focus: Companies prioritizing procurement governance, audit compliance, and consistent cross-plant operations
• Supplier network leverage: Manufacturers requiring access to pre-validated supplier databases and market intelligence capabilities

In short, JAGGAER is a better fit for large or mature manufacturers aiming to consolidate data, enforce process standards, and automate complex sourcing and supplier quality workflows.

When Ivalua wins for manufacturers

Choose Ivalua if you have:

• Complex direct materials procurement with 10,000+ active suppliers requiring BOM lifecycle management
• Manual supplier management processes requiring a comprehensive collaboration tool
• Tightly governed contracts across procurement, finance, and legal, and need a single platform to manage versions, approvals, and renewals seamlessly via a contract lifecycle management (CLM) tool

Technical architecture and integration needs:

• Low-code flexibility: Organizations looking to tailor sourcing, supplier, and contract workflows through drag-and-drop configuration rather than heavy IT development.
• Multi-ERP environments: Manufacturers using several ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, and Infor) that need centralized procurement visibility without deep custom integrations.
• Collaborative workflows: Teams seeking to bridge procurement, engineering, and finance through shared dashboards, BOM-linked sourcing, and guided intake management.

Strategic transformation objectives:

• Phased digital rollout: Companies planning a stepwise digitalization journey, starting with supplier management or sourcing, then scaling to contract and payment automation.
• Agile process evolution: Manufacturers undergoing restructuring or growth that need a platform capable of evolving alongside changing business rules and processes.
• Sustainability and ESG Alignment: Organizations prioritizing transparent supplier collaboration, carbon tracking, and compliance monitoring within procurement in the manufacturing industry.

In short, Ivalua is best suited for manufacturers that need flexibility to model their own processes, enable cross-functional collaboration, and scale procurement modernization without overhauling existing systems. The platform provides end-to-end visibility into sourcing, supplier risk, and contract performance with a single data model.

Final thoughts

When evaluating JAGGAER and Ivalua for manufacturing procurement, prioritize architectural alignment over feature comparisons.

Before committing to one platform, assess your internal processes, data quality, and integration readiness. Tangible ROI comes from connecting procurement to the rest of your value chain. Whether that means aligning sourcing data with production forecasts or feeding supplier insights into financial planning, the key is turning isolated workflows into a continuous, data-driven system.

At Xenoss, we help procurement leaders efficiently embed AI in procurement that extends beyond off-the-shelf functionality, integrating predictive analytics, supplier intelligence, and automated sourcing logic tailored to each company’s data and systems.

The choice between JAGGAER and Ivalua ultimately depends on balancing standardization versus configurability, automation depth versus implementation flexibility, and technical integration requirements versus deployment agility. Both platforms deliver measurable value when properly implemented for manufacturing-specific procurement transformation.