Franke Case Study

Turning Spend Data into Strategic Advantage: Franke’s Transformation with Mithra

“We went from fragmented visibility and misclassified spend to a robust, AI-assisted taxonomy and classification in just weeks.”

Author: [Your Name]
Date: April 29, 2025

Franke, a Switzerland-based industrial powerhouse, faced a fundamental problem: poor visibility into its spend data. Despite having an internal tool, the procurement team was stuck with unreliable material classifications and minimal insight into how to identify value or negotiate effectively.

“We had a tool internally that did not allow us to drive value—or even give us visibility,” said Angela Ramezi, Chief Procurement Officer. “We had a material group called ‘Material Others’ which included multiple categories. Our buyers couldn’t make sense of it, and therefore couldn’t identify negotiation opportunities or formulate category strategies.”

What followed was a complete transformation of Franke's spend classification and procurement strategy—powered by Mithra’s AI-first platform.

Impact Highlights:

• AI-assisted reclassification of €90M+ in ambiguous spend
• From zero to validated procurement taxonomy in ~3 weeks
• Reduced internal workload while boosting accuracy and governance
• Positioned for future-proof classification with continuous taxonomy maintenance

Use Case 1: Turning messy spend data into actionable intelligence

When Franke set out to clean up their spend data, the procurement team attempted to define a taxonomy manually. But without automated intelligence, this approach was error-prone and painfully slow.

“We realized that doing it ourselves would have been full of errors… Mithra helped us bring visibility—this is the correct classification that you should follow,” said Angela.

By combining Mithra’s cognitive intelligence with the domain expertise of Franke’s internal team, the two created a powerful collaboration loop: Mithra rapidly suggested classifications and improvements, while Franke validated these based on internal context. This drastically accelerated what would’ve been a months-long project.

“It took about a maximum of three weeks to clean the data sets, get the classification played back to us, and finalize a baseline taxonomy,” Angela explained. “Without Mithra, we would have been much slower.”

Use Case 2: Enabling governance, agility, and scale

With the baseline taxonomy established, Franke integrated it across their spend visibility tools and ERP systems. But this wasn’t just a one-time fix—it was the foundation for a dynamic classification system that could keep pace with a rapidly changing business.

Angela highlighted the importance of being able to maintain taxonomy quality across new product launches and potential mergers:

“We do have a lot of new product development cycles… the Mithra tool helps us catch new products early and classify them correctly.”

“If there’s an acquisition, we can easily integrate their taxonomy into ours by comparing classification structures using the Mithra tool.”

The AI-powered validation process allowed Franke to continually recheck and refine their taxonomy, reducing the overhead of internal debates while keeping everything aligned to procurement strategy.

Use Case 3: Uncovering pricing insights and negotiation power

Beyond taxonomy, Mithra delivered unexpected strategic advantages. By analyzing product-level spend across multiple suppliers and locations, Franke gained visibility into pricing variation.

“If for the same material we are currently buying from five suppliers, we’re able to see the average price, the highest price, and the lowest price,” Angela shared. “That’s fantastic insight. It points our buyers in the right direction for negotiation.”

This kind of intelligence—embedded directly into Franke’s procurement workflows—equips their team to pursue more aggressive savings strategies based on real-time data, not just intuition.

A partner in speed, flexibility, and innovation

Angela described the engagement with Mithra as “super easy” and “solution-oriented.” The team at Mithra, she noted, was uniquely responsive and open to adapting based on Franke’s needs and feedback:

“Many times I would say, ‘Arush, can we do it like this?’ and in the next meeting you’d show me a new way of packaging it. That ability to listen and implement quickly is super powerful.”

She closed with a word of encouragement for startups like Mithra:

“Don’t underestimate the power of being a challenger. That’s what we are at Franke. We challenge the status quo. It’s great to know that there are companies out there also saying: this can be done better.”

Final Word

Mithra helped Franke turn one of procurement’s biggest challenges—unstructured and inaccurate spend data—into a strategic asset. From the speed of implementation to ongoing adaptability, the impact continues to grow.

Now, with a robust, AI-validated taxonomy embedded across tools and processes, Franke is equipped to scale procurement excellence across future product lines, integrations, and acquisitions—with confidence.

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