From Emails to eAuctions Argenta’s Procurement Evolution with DeepStream

About Argenta

Argenta is a global research, development, and manufacturing business, focused on delivering animal health products. With manufacturing sites in the UK, New Zealand, and the United States, Argenta’s procurement function has been steadily developing over the past year under the leadership of a new global Head of Procurement. Each site operates with dedicated procurement specialists, responsible for sourcing both direct and indirect materials essential to pharmaceutical manufacturing.

We spoke to Ainsley Smith, Procurement Specialist at Argenta, who has been directly involved in onboarding DeepStream alongside our customer success team. Through her work embedding the tool into the business, she has driven the success of eAuctions and achieved significant cost savings for Argenta.

The critical step

Historically, Argenta’s procurement processes were manual and fragmented, managed primarily via email. This created inefficiencies in running RFPs, made it difficult to compare suppliers objectively, and limited visibility across procurement activities.

‍“Previously, all our requests were run manually via email, which made it quite difficult to manage the data, and compare suppliers objectively” explains Ainsley Smith, Procurement Specialist at Argenta’s Dundee site. “It was a slow and inefficient way of working” 

When the new global Head of Procurement set out to professionalise and standardise sourcing across all sites, adopting a modern eSourcing platform became a top priority. Not only would it improve speed and efficiency, but it would also reduce reliance on siloed processes and strengthen supplier engagement.

Choosing DeepStream

Having championed eSourcing in past roles, Argenta’s Head of Procurement identified DeepStream as the platform to centralise and modernise procurement activities. For Ainsley, this was her first time working with an eSourcing tool:

“I was quite keen to see how the system worked. One of the biggest challenges in procurement is the sheer volume of emails, so having a platform where everything is centralised and traceable was a huge benefit. From day one, DeepStream was intuitive, easy to use, and clearly capable of adding real value to our business.”

Unlike overcomplicated alternatives, the DeepStream platform provided the right balance of advanced functionality and usability, particularly with features like collaborative project building, templated RFQs, and eAuctions.

Partnering together‍

Onboarding was quick and seamless. Within Ainsley’s first week in role, she was introduced to DeepStream through a guided training session and was up and running almost immediately.

“Everything was quick and easy. I don’t remember any teething issues - it all went smoothly. And whenever I had a query, the support from the DeepStream team has been second to none.”

This support proved especially valuable when Argenta decided to run their first eAuction, and the DeepStream Customer Success team worked closely with Ainsley to run the event successfully.

Delivering results‍

The results spoke for themselves. The eAuction, which was run for a bulk raw material that had historically been sole-sourced, delivered highly competitive supplier bidding and significant cost savings.

“The auction ended up being an excellent tool for us. Prices fell well below the indicative quotes we’d received beforehand, and we unlocked a huge saving we simply wouldn’t have achieved otherwise.”

The impact went beyond savings. DeepStream’s visibility and audit traceability gave Argenta’s procurement team greater credibility within the wider business. Senior leadership recognised the tangible value being delivered, and procurement’s profile was raised internally.

Looking ahead‍

With a successful eAuction under their belt, Argenta is expanding its use of DeepStream. The team is now preparing to leverage the platform for RFIs to support a sole-source mitigation project across certain suppliers.

“I’m now a huge advocate for the DeepStream platform. It’s intuitive, easy to use, and the support has been excellent. I would highly recommend it to anyone considering an eSourcing tool - it can reap a lot of rewards if used correctly.”‍

Start small, scale from there

DeepStream delivers best-of-breed eRFx software with supporting source-to-contract modules, delivering the essential features that empower procurement teams to mature, step by step. We prioritise usability, ensuring our solution is the simplest, cleanest, and most user-friendly in the industry, backed by our dedicated customer success team. The procurement tech space is filled with hype, overselling, and mis-selling of sweeping, end-to-end digital transformation initiatives. Yet these projects fail because teams are sold overly-complex solutions they’re expected to ‘grow into’. This leads to tech overwhelm, low adoption, and wasted investment.

Our customers start by implementing the least amount of tech needed to achieve their immediate goals, helping them ensure rapid value realisation.

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