Many procurement organizations know that their data holds far more potential than they are able to leverage in their day-to-day operations. Manual data searches, scattered information sources, and a lack of comparability make systematic analysis difficult, often causing savings opportunities to go unnoticed.

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In the webinar "Ending Hidden Costs – How Sun Garden Used AI to Achieve Hidden Savings in Record Time," Katharina Kösters (Head of Procurement, Sun Garden) and Lucas Trümpler (Customer Development, Tacto) demonstrate how the furniture manufacturer created transparency and realized initial tangible optimizations within just a few weeks.

The Starting Point – Why Savings Potential Remained Hidden for So Long

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Sun Garden operates four plants across Europe, managing numerous product groups and a large supplier base. The initial situation was characterized by:

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• data scattered across ERP exports, Excel files, and emails
• a lack of comparability between plants
• high levels of manual research
• historical price trends that were difficult to reconstruct
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As a result, it remained unclear where price variances, alternative suppliers, or volume effects offered concrete opportunities for savings. There was no centralized view of all relevant procurement developments, nor was there a unified information base.

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Three Levers That Strengthened Procurement at Sun Garden

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1. Transparency Through Analytics

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The introduction of centralized analytics provided a clear view of product groups, suppliers, and items for the first time. Today, prices, quantities, and performance can be tracked instantly. For the purchasing department, this means early detection of outliers, well-founded comparisons between plants, and a shared data foundation for all buyers.

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2. Proactive insights from AI agents

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AI-powered insights continuously analyze purchasing data to identify anomalies, backed by real-world examples. These insights provide concrete starting points for action and highlight potential opportunities that are easily overlooked in day-to-day operations.

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3. Greater leverage with negotiation dossiers

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All key data points, such as price and volume trends, benchmarks, indices, and notes, are immediately available for supplier meetings. This simplifies preparation and ensures that discussions are conducted on a solid, data-driven basis.

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Furthermore, clearly documented results ensure transparency and consistency across multiple plants.

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Case studies – Visible results in no time

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In the webinar, Sun Garden demonstrates exactly how the new data landscape led directly to action, including:
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• Switching to more cost-effective suppliers for identical specifications
• Volume bundling for items with high price volatility
• Identifying plant-specific price differences through centralized transparency

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Conclusion – From scattered information to clear paths for savings
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The Sun Garden case illustrates how quickly procurement organizations can become more effective when transparency, actionable insights, and structured preparation come together. Processes become simpler, potential becomes more visible, and negotiations become better informed.

In this webinar, Katharina Kösters and Lucas Trümpler demonstrate how Sun Garden moved from fragmented data to data-driven procurement in a short period of time, and why the combined use of analytics, AI-driven insights, and negotiation dossiers is a powerful lever for measurable savings.

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