Case Study: Boston University achieves a single source of truth for supplier data and a $16M working capital boost with Aravo Solutions

Boston University Enrolls Aravo to Achieve Excellence in Supplier Management

Boston University, a large private research institution with over 9,600 employees and 32,000 students, faced a critical supplier-data challenge during a 2009–2011 ERP rollout. With only a 20-person sourcing team, decentralized and manual vendor processes produced duplicate, incomplete, and contradictory vendor records that could not be migrated into the new SRM system, threatening the value of the ERP implementation and the university’s ability to enforce payment terms and analyze spend.

BU deployed Aravo’s SaaS Supplier Information Management solution to create a single “source of truth,” shifting data stewardship to suppliers via electronic registration surveys and commodity-based rules. The initiative cleansed and standardized supplier, diversity and catalog data, automated workflows and ERP integration, enabled standardized payment terms that improved working capital by an estimated $16M (with potential ongoing savings), and delivered more reliable spend analytics, compliance and lower process costs.

Boston University

Richard Stack

Director of Sourcing and Procurement