65-70% of Small and Medium Enterprises still depend on spreadsheets and email for procurement. The result? These firms suffer upwards of 10-15% margin erosion compared to large enterprises due to process inefficiency. We’ve spent years understanding why mid-market RFPs fail—working with government agencies and commercial organizations across Canada and the UK to map the real workflows, bottlenecks, and stakeholder dynamics. Sextant AI is what we built from that knowledge.
Technology doesn’t fix problems. People fix problems. Enabling people to be smarter when executing their existing workflows is vital.
SMEs spend 40-43% of revenue on procurement, with 15-20% of that via RFPs. When you get strategic sourcing right, the impact is dramatic: 10-15% margin improvement through three channels. First, lower total cost of ownership from increased competition (10-20% cost reductions are achievable). Second, faster revenue growth from better problem-solution fit—buying the right product matters as much as buying it cheaply. Third, bringing solutions online faster means revenue gains compound. Success doesn’t come from features—it comes from understanding how procurement teams actually work, then building tools that make those workflows better.
65-70% of high-growth SMEs still rely on spreadsheets and email for procurement. We've studied why this creates failure patterns—working with organizations across Canada and the UK. The same challenges emerged repeatedly: challenges that manual processes can't solve, but that large enterprise platforms make worse by forcing you to change how you work.
Endless email threads and scattered documents make tracking changes nearly impossible. Critical feedback gets lost, reconciliation becomes overwhelming, and suppliers sense the chaos and back away. The result: 30-40% of SME RFPs are abandoned during the writing stage due to coordination breakdowns, unclear requirements, and siloed stakeholders. What started as procurement becomes an exercise in damage control.
Writing clear RFPs, discovering qualified suppliers, and making it easy for them to respond takes expertise and time. When suppliers see a professional process, they recognize you're serious—and competition follows. Competition creates the conditions for 10-20% cost reductions in total cost of ownership through better pricing and solution fit. Show suppliers a fair fight and they'll come. Show them chaos and they'll walk away.
Getting input from internal stakeholders shouldn't require scheduling heroics. Manual, cumbersome feedback processes lead to bottlenecks, delays, and lack of buy-in for procurement decisions. End user feedback becomes an afterthought. The return on solutions people don't use is -100%.
Legacy procurement tools are built for Fortune 500s—overly complex, expensive, and designed to force your processes into their templates. Growing organizations need solutions tailored to their scale, where buyers remain in control, supervising and working interactively with AI rather than being replaced by it.
Sextant AI adapts to your RFP workflow rather than forcing you to change. With human-supervised AI, we help your team achieve better efficiency while you maintain complete control over every decision.
Our AI consultant, Pilot, doesn't just generate documents—it systematically interviews your stakeholder committee, section by section, generating suggested answers they can accept, edit, or replace with their own language. Pilot then iterates through drafting versions that integrate this feedback for the humans-in-the-loop who retain the final say over the RFP.
Instead of one person trying to capture everyone's requirements through email chains, the AI does coordination work. The system learns your document preferences, terminology, and requirements over time, improving consistency across procurements. Every RFP you complete makes the next one better.
Design RFPs together in real-time with inputs from end users and stakeholders—like modern collaborative tools you already use. Seamlessly integrate feedback, track changes, and obtain buy-in from everyone involved. When people shape requirements, they own the outcome.
Evaluate supplier proposals collaboratively using Sextant's scoring tools. Everyone sees the same information. The audit trail is automatic. Decisions are defensible. Transparency builds confidence internally and demonstrates professionalism externally. Organizations with transparent procurement processes can reduce fraud risk by up to 30% while simultaneously improving stakeholder trust and regulatory compliance.
SMEs lose 10-15% in margins compared to large enterprises due to procurement process inefficiency. The gap isn't capability—it's tooling. Sextant AI empowers mid-size organizations to streamline RFP processes and achieve faster outcomes without enterprise complexity or cost. Built for teams that need results in weeks, not quarters.
Align stakeholders and gain faster approvals with collaborative tools designed for easy input and unified decision-making. When people can contribute without workflow disruption, they actually do—and email chain chaos disappears.
Leverage human-supervised AI to accelerate RFP drafting, analysis, and supplier matching. Cut weeks of coordination work into days—30-50% cycle time reductions are achievable for organizations moving from spreadsheets and email. But speed without control is chaos—that's why you supervise every AI suggestion and maintain complete oversight. Fast procurement with maintained quality means faster organizational agility.
Your team shouldn't need training that rivals learning a new software language. If they use Figma, Notion, or Google Docs, they already understand Sextant's interaction model. Minimal training, maximum adoption—because the best software is software people actually use.
Pilot helps discover, vet, and solicit relevant suppliers based on category intelligence from our data repositories. You don't know what you don't know—and finding qualified suppliers outside your existing network is time-consuming. More competition means better outcomes.
Public and your own private repositories of RFPs and contracts give you category intelligence rapidly, including pricing benchmarks and proven requirement patterns. Learn from what's worked elsewhere without expensive consulting engagements.
Sextant was tremendously helpful in our Future of Retail program. We regularly issued joint requests for proposals from startups on behalf of multiple corporate sponsors, and EdgeworthBox massively reduced the complexity of managing these events. The collaboration suite—including messaging and evaluation tools—helped us engage more effectively with startups, resulting in higher response rates and significantly more relevant submissions.
As a sourcing tool, Sextant proved to be a robust and intuitive platform, bringing simplicity to the procurement of a significant and complex client requirement.
A non-profit helped two Canadian cities coordinate a joint RFP for electric buses, charging stations, and infrastructure with funding from the Government of Canada in a first-of-its-kind procurement.
A leading innovation ecosystem helped a number of large organizations issue joint Requests for Innovation soliciting greater numbers of proposals that were far more responsive that previous engagements, while facilitating the participation of multiple evaluators from different organizations.
A global organization coordinated a board-level governance project requiring the engagement of its regional subsidiaries, soliciting consultants for a complex RFP.
A direct comparison of modern AI-powered RFPs against outdated, manual processes.
| Dimension | Incumbent Software | Sextant AI |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Primarily document management tool for existing processes. | Strategic platform for optimized RFP workflow, leveraging AI Agents. |
| User Experience | Clunky and formalistic | Simple and intuitive |
| Service and Support | Tool-related IT support | Procurement consultants for process optimization and tool usage. |
| Pricing Model | Per-user licensing, often with hidden fees for features and support. Expensive to scale. | Enterprise-based pricing with unlimited seats. Naturally scalable. Inexpensive. |
| Implementation Time | Months to years, requiring extensive IT involvement and often custom integration. | 2-3 weeks, principally adapting to your organization’s existing workflows. Minimal integration required. Built-in API provides data access. |
| Training Needs | Extensive training sessions, often requiring dedicated staff for onboarding and support. | Intuitive UI minimizes training. Self-service guides and assistance available 24/7. |
| Feature Set | Extensive set of features for broad procurement use case beyond RFPs, with varying degrees of customization. Limited collaboration. | AI-powered content generation, collaborative writing and evaluation tools, focused on RFPs where mid-market needs are greatest. |
| Benchmarking Data | Limited or expensive add-ons | Access to public sector RFPs gives category intelligence and pricing benchmarks. |
| AI Integration | Add-on tools, varying by vendor. | Deeply integrated, human-supervised AI for drafting, vendor recommendation, and proposal evaluation. |
| Workflow Style | Rigid, siloed workflows that force process changes. | Dynamic, collaborative workflows that adapt to how you already work. |
| General Approach | Designed for enterprise scale; forces mid-market to adopt enterprise complexity | Built specifically for mid-market scale and needs |
| Philosophy | Technology defines the process. | Process and people define how technology helps. |
For years, we operated as EdgeworthBox, refining our approach with government and commercial clients across Canada and the UK. Now, as Sextant AI, we’re bringing that hard-won process knowledge to mid-market organizations through technology that adapts to how teams actually operate.
Reduced from 1-3 months to as little as 1 week (75-92% time savings)
Reduced from 30 days to 5 days (83% faster)
Actual results show 30-50% is achievable
100% across all client organizations
Immediate increase in both quantity and quality of proposals
Zero abandoned RFPs (vs. industry rate of 30-40%)
100% (zero failed implementations to date)
Implementation measured in days, not months. Timeline depends primarily on your responsiveness—not technical complexity.
Account provisioning and access setup.
Platform training for procurement team (virtual sessions).
First pilot project initiated with hands-on support.
2-hour session mapping your current RFP workflow, identify bottlenecks and stakeholder pain points, configure templates (starting with yours, not ours), set up stakeholder roles and permissions.
Run a real RFP (typically a smaller one). Your team learns by doing, with our support. We observe workflow patterns and adjust. Pilot provides content for our AI to learn from. Full platform deployment begins for all users.
Ramp up pace of RFP issuance. Ongoing procurement consultant support (not just IT tickets). Iterative improvement based on your actual use.
We start with process understanding, not software training. No extensive change management required because the platform feels intuitive—like tools people already use.
Not every organization is ready for collaborative RFP technology. Success requires more than just software—it requires organizational commitment to stakeholder involvement and process improvement. Here's how to know if you're ready.
You run 3+ RFPs annually. Below this threshold, the coordination benefits don't justify platform adoption—spreadsheets and email may actually be sufficient for your needs.
5+ people are involved in your typical RFP process (procurement, finance, legal, end users, technical reviewers). If one person handles everything, our collaboration features won't add value.
You're experiencing coordination chaos, low supplier competition, slow evaluation cycles, or stakeholder buy-in challenges. If your current process works smoothly, don't fix what isn't broken.
Someone can champion adoption (doesn't need to be full-time, but needs to drive usage). Technology without a champion becomes shelfware—even good technology.
You're open to refining your RFP process. We learn together over 2-3 projects. If you need perfection from day one, you'll be frustrated.
Your team complains about email chaos, version control nightmares, or feeling uninvolved in procurement decisions. Frustration creates motivation for change.
You can dedicate 2-3 weeks for implementation (training, pilot project, refinement). If you need results tomorrow without any learning curve, that's unrealistic.
You run 1-2 RFPs per year. The platform has too much functionality for occasional use. Stick with email and spreadsheets—seriously.
One person handles everything and stakeholder input isn't needed. Our collaboration layer solves a problem you don't have.
You need full source-to-pay capabilities including contract lifecycle management, supplier relationship management, and spend analysis. We focus exclusively on RFPs—we're specialists, not generalists.
You're looking for software you never have to think about. Good procurement requires ongoing engagement. If you want automation without involvement, we're not the right fit.
Your procurement challenges stem from deeper organizational issues (no authority, no budget, no executive support). Technology can't fix broken organizations—it can only amplify what's already there.
Stakeholders don't want to be involved in procurement or procurement doesn't want stakeholder input. Our entire value proposition is collaboration—if that's unwanted, we'll make things worse, not better.
You need immediate results without any setup. While we're fast (2-3 weeks), we're not instant. Some learning curve is required.
We have 100% implementation success, but we're transparent about potential risks:
Technology without someone driving adoption becomes shelfware. During pilot, we help identify natural champions.
We make good teams great. We don't fix broken organizations. If your challenges are fundamentally organizational rather than process-related, address those first.
Involve stakeholders before purchase, not after. Our pilot approach builds buy-in through participation. Implementation success is a partnership. We bring technology and expertise. You bring organizational context and champion ownership. Together, we create procurement transformation.
