After almost a year of partnership, and over 10x as many Britishvolt users now as when they first signed up, we sat down with two of our most active and experienced users, Procurement Analyst Riten Aghera and Procurement Specialist Claire Bukirwa, to discuss their experiences using DeepStream to send RFx (Request For anything).
Communicating with Suppliers
Riten, who has run multiple RFx through the platform, said that using DeepStream has been “really useful to publish tender documents and to communicate with Suppliers”, with Claire explaining the reason for this is that the platform is “very user-friendly and straightforward, there aren't any tricks”. Both of these users had been told that Suppliers felt the same way when using DeepStream. According to Riten;
“Suppliers get up and running very quickly, proving that DeepStream is easy to use, very clear and not very complicated.”
Time-Saving Benefits
Freeing teams from emails and spreadsheet is a key principle for us. With our motto of making sure teams are ‘Inbox Zero for a Net Zero Future’, we are dedicated to enabling our partners to implement transparent processes and replace opaque ways of working.
Get in touch to learn more about how to get your RFx processes going!
Asked about the amount of time saved by using DeepStream, both Claire and Riten agreed that using the platform has reduced the time they would typically spend on email. Claire illustrated this well with an example of when she had to send out 3 RFx to a number of Suppliers. Without DeepStream this process would have occurred on email, she would have had to send out dozens of emails with attachments in zip files. Being able to use DeepStream removed this logistical headache and reduced her manual workload significantly. This has enabled her to streamline her workflow, and empowered her to send out 4 requests in one day, making processes more efficient and communication with Suppliers easier to manage. To put this in tangible terms, after conducting a survey of how many hours a day users save by using DeepStream, Britishvolt’s average was 3hrs daily. Multiply that by the number of users and days of the working week in a month - that's almost 2,000 working hours annually that Britishvolt has saved and been able to re-deploy elsewhere.
“Instead of wasting time on emails, it frees up more time for us on productive exercises, allowing us to allocate the time to something more urgent and important that requires our attention", says Riten.
Favourite Features
As DeepStream develops and updates features based on user-feedback, Britishvolt’s input has been invaluable. Unsurprisingly, some of Riten and Claire’s favourite features were ones that they suggested. Riten highlighted the Audit trail as a particular favourite for transparency and team visibility purposes, as well as the clean and simple user interface. Claire noted the ability to revise requests as something that was particularly useful as well as the ability to choose whether or not to notify Suppliers of these revisions. Similarly, she found the ability to build RFx in Draft before issuing them helpful when it came to building long and complex RFx. Finally, the fact users are notified and a chat message opens if and when a Supplier withdraws their bid made Claire’s top 3 features. And that was built as a direct result of Britishvolt’s feedback.
Our Partnership
Having close working relationships with all our partners is something that DeepStream prides itself on, and this is in part due to our white glove customer service. Setting high expectations for the level of service customers receive is something that we are comfortable doing because we know we can deliver. Both Riten and Claire confirmed that their expectations were more than met with the agility of the platform demonstrated by the release of new features from their feedback, and in terms of customer support availability.
“DeepStream is very responsive over email, phone and even WhatsApp.It’s really useful to have that instant response when there’s something urgent”, says Claire Bukirwa.
Speaking to Jack Macfarlane, DeepStream CEO about the partnership:
“We’re proud of the close working relationship we’ve developed with Britishvolt as we support them building factories, and sourcing equipment and materials to bring the UK one step closer to reaching Net Zero emissions."
Both DeepStream and Britishvolt are challengers to old and outdated ways of operating. Both of us reject inefficient and opaque ways of working as standard practice, and seek to provide sustainable and transparent solutions as an alternative. At DeepStream this is achieved by dramatically reducing time and operational costs in procurement, massively increasing ESG (Governance) standards and at the same time moving businesses like Britishvolt to digitally transparent procurement processes to ensure supplier selection is based on sustainability criteria as well as other bidding credentials. In short, we have moved Britishvolt to Inbox Zero (away from opaque emails & attachments) in their RFx processes whilst also facilitating Net Zero goals in their supply chain.”
We’ve been delighted to develop our professional relationships with the team at Britishvolt, especially as they build out the equipment necessary to sustainably make batteries that will fuel a Net Zero future. We continue to be excited about DeepStream delivering to help support this vision, and if your company would like to benefit from the same agility, transparency and efficiency that Britishvolt has gained from using DeepStream, click here to find out more.
