Forrester TEI study projects Zip delivers 386% ROI for enterprise procurement

Forrester Consulting's new Total Economic Impact™ study of Zip's AI procurement orchestration platform quantifies the financial return enterprise customers realize: 386% ROI and $5.8 million in net present value over three years. Forrester interviewed procurement leaders at four global enterprises running on Zip, then built a composite model to project the economic impact for a representative $30 billion enterprise.

Forrester's findings track with what we hear from procurement teams every week. Legacy procurement software has been promising adoption and value for two decades, with most of it still running on the same assumption: that buyers will navigate complex workflows because that’s how it’s meant to be.

Zip was built on the opposite premise. When intake is a single front door, employee requesters actually adhere to purchasing policies. If procurement can see demand early, the team is able to shape outcomes rather than simply processing them. And if workflows are configurable without engineering tickets, the function moves at the speed of the business.

That's the model the Forrester TEI study validates.

What did Forrester's TEI study of Zip find?

Forrester's study found that the composite Zip customer realized $7.4 million in benefits against $1.5 million in costs over three years, driven by improved spend governance, faster procurement cycles, and reduced IT administrative overhead.

Value is across three areas: cost savings from improved spend governance and renewal discipline, efficiency gains from intake and procurement orchestration, and reduced IT and administrative effort. The composite organization is a $30 billion enterprise with $2 billion of spend in scope.

The interviewees behind the composite tell fascinating and instructive stories. 

A VP of strategic sourcing at a $20 billion retailer told Forrester their team grew spend under management from 13% to 75% after standing up Zip as the single intake front door. "We have far and away exceeded our savings expectations," they said. "From an ROI perspective, the business has enjoyed a 10 times return on our investment."

A senior global director of digital procurement at a $45 billion consumer goods company described what happened in the first five weeks: roughly 300 requests came through Zip, more than the team had processed the entire prior year. That represented $3.9 billion in spend, about 15% of the $25 billion in scope. "I'll be stunned if we don't hit $10 billion next year."

Why procurement orchestration ROI matters now

Procurement orchestration is still a new category, and new categories live or die on whether the value is real. Forrester's TEI is the most rigorous third-party validation Zip has yet received.

The companies in the study had invested in procurement technology for decades, yet were still leaving meaningful value on the table. That exact problem is what Zip was built to solve, and it's the reason AI will widen Zip's lead over the next several years.

Read the full Forrester TEI study of Zip

The report walks through Forrester's methodology, the modeling assumptions behind each benefit category, the risk adjustments applied, and the full three-year cash flow analysis. If you're building the business case for procurement orchestration, it's the document to put in front of your finance team.

Download the full Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study.

Frequently asked questions

What is the ROI of Zip according to Forrester? 

386% three-year ROI, $5.8M NPV, with a savings of $97,000 from reduced system administration and IT support.

How did Forrester calculate Zip's ROI?

Forrester interviewed four enterprise Zip customers ($10B–$45B revenue), built a composite $30B enterprise model, applied risk adjustments, and modeled three years of cash flows. (Link to Forrester's TEI methodology page.)

What companies did Forrester interview for the Zip TEI study? 

Four global enterprises in retail, consumer goods, financial services, and insurance.

What is procurement orchestration? → A two-sentence definition that links to /blog/procurement-orchestration.

Download the full Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study.

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