Case study

Alcoa is a global industry leader in the production of bauxite, alumina and aluminum. Since developing the aluminum industry more than 135 years ago, Alcoa has built a legacy of breakthrough innovations and best practices that have led to efficiency, safety, sustainability, and stronger communities wherever they operate. Through direct and indirect ownership, Alcoa has 27 operating locations in nine countries, situated primarily in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Spain, and the United States.

Across the company, Alcoa is focused on three strategic priorities: Reduce complexity, Drive returns, and Advance sustainably. Recognizing the significant impact that procurement can drive for strategic initiatives, the leadership at Alcoa Procurement sought to digitize their purchasing processes in order to drive better & faster decision-making.

Jay Holton, from the Procurement Center of Excellence at Alcoa, recognized cost-savings and supply resilience as the key goals for digitization, especially considering the volatile nature of the aluminum market. With that goal, the team set out to evaluate best-in-class solutions to automate their procurement processes and leverage emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence.

Alcoa approached Fairmarkit with the intention of:

• Reducing manual work for the buying team, whether it be creating a sourcing event, identifying suppliers, managing invites & responses, or collaborating with internal stakeholders. This would help Alcoa liberate the procurement team from rote work and focus on managing more spend at a larger scale.
• Introducing transparency and visibility into the centralized buying process at Alcoa so that every team member can make deliberate, data-driven award decisions no matter how large or small the event. This would help Alcoa ensure that all spend flowing through procurement actively contributes to KPIs.