How AI Is Creating More Resilient Supply Chains

Founded in 2015, scoutbee brings together expertise from purchasing, operations, engineering and data science to transform the way organizations discover and connect with suppliers.


When a deadly tsunami hit Japan in 2011, 50% of Gregor Stühler’s supply chain vanished. To find new suitable suppliers quickly, he began to explore the most powerful way to pull together verified information about suppliers across the globe and make it available in a single profile. Thus, scoutbee was born.

scoutbee matches businesses with their optimal suppliers. Powered by AI and continuously curated data, scoutbee tracks millions of data points to form supplier information with deep insights and a simple, digital process for strategic sourcing.

The company builds software and data products using AI and big data to make the networks of suppliers more transparent and searchable. The startup’s machine learning algorithms help collect and aggregate records, automatically create suppliers’ profiles and categorize them.

scoutbee surfaces suppliers’ pricing, competitive relationships and delivery track records. The company expedites discovery by enabling customers to filter by specifications and product demands and to track key performance metrics.

“The procurement market is hungry for a disruptive and easy-to-implement solution like scoutbee’s,” said HV Holtzbrinck Venture partner Jan Miczaika, as reported by Venture Beat. “While there are many procure-to-pay technologies for chief procurement officers and their teams, scoutbee, with its AI-powered technology, bridges a huge gap in supplier visibility and the process of sourcing strategic projects.”

scoutbee supports 150+ multi-national clients across diverse industries including machinery & engineering, automotive, FMCG, chemical, oil & gas and pharma. Since its founding in 2015 scoutbee has had many success stories. Companies like Siemens, Audi, Linde, SEW Eurodrive, Kärcher and Viessmann report discovering many times more relevant suppliers at speed, and a drastic decrease in procurement research costs when using scoutbee’s platform.

In 2020, as the world faced the COVID-19 pandemic, startups and companies such as scoutbee became even more important for meeting the world’s growing demand for certain products by connecting companies with suitable suppliers of materials in an efficient and cost-effective manner. scoutbee recently announced that it had joined the World Economic Forum’s Global Innovators Community to collaborate with a focus on the future of advanced manufacturing and production.

To learn more about scoutbee visit scoutbee.com

Article by Bruno Stojcic