Felix in 2024: Advancing procurement, sustainability, and security

As we review 2024, it's clear that the year brought significant developments for Felix and the industry. Through strategic initiatives, technological improvements, and a focus on key challenges, we've made meaningful progress in several critical areas.

This review highlights the key themes and achievements that defined our year.

Growing role of procurement and vendor management

Typically accounting for a substantial portion of project expenditures, procurement's potential to influence bottom-line performance has become increasingly evident.

As Andrew McFarlane from McConnell Dowell succinctly stated:

Andrew also shared the five pillars for procurement success whilst delivering his keynote speech at the Construction Procurement Summit this year. And Felix couldn’t be prouder to be part of their second pillar – Delivery and management system.

The complexity of modern procurement demands a sophisticated, technology-enabled approach. Felix has been at the forefront of this transformation, providing integrated procurement solutions that address the nuanced challenges of managing vendor relationships in dynamic, high-stakes environments.

As industry leaders like Ryan Kirgan from CPB Contractors have highlighted, the key to procurement success lies in connecting entire supply chains and transforming traditional processes through intelligent technology.

We were fortunate enough to interview Ryan at the Construction Procurement Summit, as he shared his journey of procurement transformation at CPB. 

Sustainability and ESG

“Speed is often the mortal enemy of sustainability.” – Evelyn Storey, Aurecon at FCON 2024.

This profound quote encapsulates the growing complexity of sustainable business practices in today's rapidly changing world. 

The push for mandatory climate-related reporting gained significant momentum this year, with Group 1 entities starting their first annual report on or after 1 Jan, 2025.

We invited sustainability expert from RSM – who published a research paper on the readiness of Aussie companies for mandatory climate reporting. 

She gave us industry-specific data as well as dove into the reporting requirements. Check out the webinar recording here.

Another noteworthy mention is Fulton Hogan’s journey towards sustainable construction. Felix was proud to be one of the enablers, by providing insights into the market and supplier behaviour. Check out the case study here in our FCON 2024 recap post.

On the S aspect of ESG, our webinar on driving social procurement provided practical insights into how organisations can integrate social responsibility into their procurement strategies.

This aligns with Felix's commitment to supporting our clients in tracking and reporting their social procurement efforts. By doing so, we help them enhance their brand reputation and meet their ESG targets, demonstrating that procurement can be a powerful tool for positive social impact.

This year, Felix made our debut in NRW’s Modern Slavery statement. Another moment of immense pride as we help capital and asset-intensive industries address the complex challenges of modern supplier management.

Cybersecurity

In 2024, Felix continued to prioritise and strengthen its commitment to cybersecurity and data protection. A significant milestone in this journey was our successful completion of the SOC 2 Type 2 certification, which underscores our dedication to maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

One powerful demonstration of our robust cybersecurity measures came to light through a sophisticated social engineering fraud attempt that our integrated security systems successfully thwarted. In this case, a malicious actor impersonated a staff member from a well-known mining services company, meticulously crafting a multi-week social engineering attack. 

Watch the story unfolds  here.

Product improvements

This year, we carried out 20 client implementations. Meanwhile, the product and technology teams worked on notable feature releases such as:

• Eftsure integration - so Felix users can identify errors frauds and scam attempts at the time of vendor onboarding  (Vendor Management module)
• Pricing Schedule versions - so that users can amend as information changes over the course of the sourcing event (Sourcing module)
• Notes rows added to Pricing Schedules - for users to communicate pricing context using notes adjacent to pricing (Sourcing module)
• Post tender requests - allowing users to request revised offers from quoted vendors on closed RFQs (Sourcing module)
• Multi-staged approval workflows for RFQs and RFAs - to accommodate for several stages of approvals (Sourcing module)
• New APIs for Security Groups to observe what permissions have been set for staff members, and new API endpoints for Vendor Branches and Branch Payment Details in our Vendor Management module API permission set.

Platform growth

As businesses continue to seek more efficient and comprehensive procurement solutions, our platform has seen significant developments in 2024. These statistics reflect the ongoing collaboration with our clients and the practical improvements we've implemented:

• 100K+ total vendors (across 101 countries) 
• 68% increase in users
• 52% increase in vendor invitations  
• 18% increase in RFQs created 
• 90% increase in vendor evaluations performed  
• 183% increase in vendor tags 
• 64% increase in user logins
• 117% increase in value of RFQs issued through Felix

Partnership

This year, we've joined forces with Fiable, a financial viability assessment platform that addresses a critical gap in supply chain risk management. Our partnership emerges from a crucial insight: long-standing supplier relationships don't guarantee financial stability.

The collaboration addresses a significant challenge for enterprises critically dependent on third-party suppliers. As highlighted in our recent webinar, Australian business insolvencies are at a 25-year high, with subcontractor failures potentially costing up to $20 million in large infrastructure projects. Our partnership with Fiable provides a comprehensive solution that goes beyond traditional vendor management.

Want to learn more about how we're transforming supply chain risk management? Watch our full webinar on Risk to Resilience and discover how Felix and Fiable are helping organisations move from vulnerability to resilience.

Final words

As we reflect on the remarkable journey of 2024, we are filled with gratitude for the trust and collaboration of our clients, partners, and team members. The achievements highlighted in this review are a testament to our collective dedication to innovation, sustainability, and excellence.

We wish you all the very best for the holidays and look forward to reconnecting in the new year with renewed energy and exciting prospects!

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The majority of the Felix team will be out of office from Monday December 23th and return Monday January 6th. Need Product Support over the break? Our team will be available Monday – Friday 7am – 7pm AEST excluding the following public holidays.

• Wednesday 25/12/2024: Closed
• Thursday 26/12/2024: Closed
• Wednesday 01/01/2025: Closed