Configurable approval routing
Approval chains follow the organisation's existing authority matrix, and changes to thresholds or approvers are made in the system without a development cycle, so policy changes reach the workflow immediately.
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MIDAS benchmarks line-item prices against real market data and flags off-contract spend as it happens.
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How Shell Improved Procurement Efficiency
Shell's regional operations in Malaysia required procurement infrastructure that could keep pace with operational demand. Manual approval processes and limited spend visibility were creating bottlenecks that slowed purchasing decisions and made budget control difficult to enforce consistently across the organisation.
Borong provided a custom workflow framework with integrated spend dashboards and ERP connectivity, moving Shell from an email-driven approval process to a governed digital procurement operation.
50% faster procurement approval process
Improved visibility across all procurement activities
Data-driven cost optimisation and budget control
The Challenge
Shell struggled with manual procurement approvals and a lack of visibility on spend tracking across its regional operations, creating bottlenecks that slowed purchasing decisions and made budget oversight difficult to maintain.
In a distributed regional operation, manual procurement compounds. Requests move through email chains, approvers are not always reachable, and a sign-off that should take minutes waits days. Across hundreds of requests a month, the aggregate delay is a significant operational drag.
The visibility problem was as damaging. Without consolidated spend data in one system, finance and procurement leadership worked from incomplete information, budget tracking ran on manual reconciliation, and spotting a category trending over budget took effort it should not have. Corrective action was always retrospective.
The Solution
With Borong's Custom Procurement Workflows and spend dashboards, Shell implemented a tailored procurement framework with budget controls, streamlined approval processes, and seamless integration with its ERP system.
The workflow engine was configured to mirror Shell's approval authority matrix exactly, routing requests to the right approvers on value thresholds, category rules and organisational hierarchy. Approvals are mobile-accessible, removing the offline-approver bottleneck, and no purchase commits until every required authorisation is obtained and recorded.
Spend dashboards give leadership a consolidated, real-time view across every category and cost centre. Budget tracking is automated: actuals update with each committed purchase, so finance catches overspend before it becomes a reporting problem.
Standard cXML and OCI Punchout connect Borong directly to Shell's financial systems, so purchase order data flows back into the ERP automatically. Spend data stays current without manual entry and the ERP reflects committed procurement in real time.
MIDAS, Borong's AI-powered price benchmarking and spend intelligence engine, adds a further layer. Setting market-based benchmarks from network transaction data, it surfaces savings and alerts when supplier pricing deviates from benchmark or agreed contract rates. Budget control improves through pricing discipline in every purchase, not just approval governance.
The Outcomes
50% faster procurement approval process
Replacing email-chain approvals with automated, mobile-accessible workflows cut approval cycle times in half. Requests that waited days now clear in hours, and the reduction is structural rather than dependent on individual behaviour, because the workflow routes automatically and escalates when approvals run past a defined timeframe.
Improved visibility across all procurement activities
Consolidated dashboards give Shell's leadership a real-time picture across every category, supplier and cost centre, replacing the manual assembly of spend reports from multiple sources with reporting that is always current.
Data-driven cost optimisation and budget control
With benchmark data and automated budget tracking inside the workflow, cost management moved from retrospective to proactive. Category managers see spend trending against budget and against market benchmarks at once, which makes intervention earlier and better informed.
Capability in Focus: Custom Procurement Workflows
The capability that drove Shell's efficiency improvement is Borong Procure's workflow engine, which supports full customisation of approval routing, threshold rules, and category-specific governance requirements.
Mobile approval access
Approvers action requests from any device, which removes the most common source of delay in a manual process: the approver who is not at their desk.
Budget integration
Budget limits per category, cost centre, and department are configured in the workflow. Requests that would exceed budget are flagged before the approval is sought, not after it is given.
Full audit trail
Every approval action, including rejections and escalations, is recorded with timestamps and user attribution, so governance and audit requirements are met without additional documentation effort.
Why Borong for Regional Oil and Gas Procurement
Shell's operation spans Sabah and Sarawak, with a supply chain covering both managed supplier relationships and open-market sourcing. Borong serves both through a dual-channel structure: a Close channel for curated relationships and an Open channel for the broader verified network, under one approval, audit and compliance framework.
Borong is a platform facilitator and does not compete with sellers by selling products itself, so organisations reach a wider supplier network with no conflict of interest. Where supplier choice and pricing transparency matter, that independence is a practical advantage.
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Turn Your Approval Matrix
Into an Automated Workflow
See how Borong Procure's workflow engine can be configured to your organisation's existing authority matrix.