Transforming Procurement through Agentic AI and NetSuite ERP integration
Lifelong Learning Singapore (LLSG) previously relied on manual email-based processes that hindered its growing team. Discover how we enhanced these workflows and processes by implementing an agentic AI solution powered by Microsoft Copilot and integrated with NetSuite ERP to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and governance.
Service
Sector
“Collaborating with Lancia on transforming our procurement processes through Agentic AI and NetSuite ERP has been impactful. Their expertise and practical insights helped streamline our operations and enhance efficiency across the organisation.”
~ Noreen Chong, Head, Campus Operations & Recruitment, Lifelong Learning Singapore
The Challenge
As LLSG’s workforce expanded to around 80 staff and purchase requisitions increased, procurement quickly emerged as an area of improvement. The existing procurement model involved eight different methods, each requiring multiple steps, approvals, and documentation requirements, with most workflows tracked manually.
Drafting clear, policy‑aligned requests and justifications for Approval of Requirement (AOR) and Approval of Purchase (AOP) submissions was time consuming. Ensuring compliance across diverse sourcing methods also became more challenging as procurement volumes increased. LLSG therefore saw opportunities to improve consistency and standardisation in the procurement process.
Recognising these gaps, LLSG partnered with us to explore how AI could transform procurement to enhance compliance, reduce administrative burden, and create a user‑friendly procurement process that supports a growing workforce.
The Solution
To enhance LLSG’s procurement, we developed LiLLi, a custom AI agent, delivered through a structured six-month roadmap.
· Tailored design: Detailed workshops across various procurement methods enabled us to accurately capture requirements and align the solution with LLSG’s diverse workflows.
· Built-in expertise: LiLLi was trained on thousands of AOR and AOP documents, policies and guidelines, to learn about LLSG’s unique justification patterns and compliance rules. As a result, LiLLi could generate context‑rich, policy‑aligned AOR/AOP justifications, validate mandatory fields, and respond instantly to procurement queries.
· Automated drafting: Automated generation of procurement requests, justifications and documents such as Purchase Order (PO), which reduces manual writing for staff and improves consistency.
· Seamless NetSuite integration: Procurement requests drafted through LiLLi are integrated into NetSuite, where reviews, validations, and approvals are routed. This creates a unified procurement ecosystem to ensure governance, traceability, and compliance.
The Impact
The implementation of LiLLi has delivered a step-change in productivity and governance, transforming procurement from a manual burden into a strategic asset.
Key impact:
1. Staff time reclaimed through improved productivity:
· Given the substantial procurement requests processed annually, LLSG is able to free up significant amount of staff time for higher value-added work.
· By automating responses to repetitive policy queries, the procurement team has freed up substantial staff time annually, allowing them to focus less on basic routine support to high-value advisory work.
2. Audit readiness: By integrating into a fully traceable, centralised ERP solution, audit queries are now resolved more quickly.
This project has also improved knowledge capture and standardisation by digitising years of expertise previously known only to a few long-serving staff and helped improve AI literacy.
By serving as co-designers of the system, LLSG’s teams moved beyond manual workflows to a mindset where AI amplifies their expertise and ensures rigorous, data-driven compliance across the entire procurement lifecycle.
.jpg)
