Anciensout / TESTIMONIALS
What Procurement Teams Tell Us
Feedback from colleagues who went through a Anciensout engagement and were willing to share their experience.
← Back to Home38
ENGAGEMENTS
14
GLC & GOV CLIENTS
4.7
AVERAGE RATING
100%
WRITTEN DELIVERABLES
CLIENT FEEDBACK
What Clients Say
Zulaikha Azman
Head of Procurement, Selangor GLC
"We were getting asked by senior management about AI in procurement and honestly did not know where to start. The Workflow Review gave us a sensible framework and a brief we could share upwards without worrying about it being technically unsound. The MOF notes were particularly useful — we had not thought carefully about which circulars applied to our category."
April 2025
Ravinesh Kumar
Category Lead, Infrastructure Procurement, KL
"The Proposal Reading Pilot was well-run. The six weeks felt like a reasonable window — long enough to see the AI handle a real mix of proposals but not so long that the team lost focus. The adviser picked up an output drift issue in week four that we had not noticed ourselves, which was exactly the kind of oversight we needed."
March 2025
Norhafiza Mahmud
Senior Procurement Officer, Johor Bahru
"The thing I valued most was that they read our actual documents first. Other advisers we spoke to had clearly not looked at procurement paperwork before — their suggestions did not map to how a tender evaluation actually works. Anciensout understood the format and the stakes involved."
April 2025
Hafifi Ariffin
Procurement Manager, Federal Agency, KL
"We are on the Quarterly Stewardship arrangement and have been for about seven months. The monthly brief is genuinely useful — it keeps the procurement head informed without requiring him to understand the AI technology himself. The yearly summary is going to the audit committee next quarter."
April 2025
Sivakumar Thambipillai
Head of Contracts, Petaling Jaya
"The PDPA documentation was thorough and saved us a lot of internal back-and-forth with our legal team. I had expected to need our own lawyers to review everything separately, but the data handling note was clear enough that they accepted it with minor amendments."
March 2025
Lim Wei Ling
Procurement Director, Kuala Lumpur
"I appreciated that they told us the pilot scope needed to be narrower than we initially proposed. We wanted to run AI across all proposal types at once — they advised starting with one document category to get a clean read on quality. That was good counsel."
April 2025
CASE STUDIES
How Engagements Played Out
Three engagements described with permission from the procurement teams involved.
Government-Linked Infrastructure Company, Selangor
CHALLENGE
The procurement team was receiving 60–90 supplier proposals per quarter for infrastructure sub-contracting tenders. Category leads were spending 30–40% of their working week on initial document reading before evaluation could begin. The team had no capacity to take on additional categories.
APPROACH
We completed a Workflow Review to identify which reading tasks within the proposal intake process were suitable for AI summarisation. Following the review, the team proceeded to a Proposal Reading Pilot covering one sub-contractor category for six weeks. Two buyers were trained; the AI produced initial summary memos only.
OUTCOME
The category leads reported that initial reading time for the piloted category reduced by approximately 35–40% during the pilot period. The end-of-pilot brief recommended proceeding with the AI assist for that category with two specific scope adjustments. The team is now in month five of Quarterly Stewardship.
"The reduction in reading load was real and measurable. More importantly, the buyers felt confident that they understood what the AI was doing — that was largely down to the training and the clear usage policy." — Head of Procurement
Federal Statutory Body, Kuala Lumpur
CHALLENGE
The organisation's Chief Financial Officer had asked the procurement head to produce a report on AI readiness for a board strategy session. The procurement team had no prior exposure to AI tools and was uncertain what a responsible assessment would cover for a public sector entity bound by MOF guidelines.
APPROACH
A Workflow Review engagement was commissioned. We reviewed a sample of tender evaluation documents and PO records, met with the procurement head and one contract manager, and produced a written brief that mapped potential AI reading tasks against the entity's specific MOF compliance obligations.
OUTCOME
The written brief was presented to the board as part of the strategy session. The board approved a budget for a pilot in the next financial year. The procurement head noted that having a documented, compliance-aware assessment gave the board the confidence to make a decision rather than defer indefinitely.
"A document we could place in front of the board without having to pre-empt every question about legality or data handling. That is exactly what we needed." — Procurement Head
Property Development Group, Kuala Lumpur and Johor
CHALLENGE
The group had already adopted an AI tool for procurement document reading before engaging Anciensout. Twelve months in, the procurement director was finding it difficult to explain to internal auditors how the tool was governed, what its boundaries were, and whether it had ever produced outputs that led to award decisions it should not have influenced.
APPROACH
We began Quarterly Stewardship with an initial month-one audit that reconstructed the governance picture from existing records. A written boundary policy was produced retrospectively based on the tool's actual behaviour. Subsequent months have followed the standard stewardship cadence.
OUTCOME
The internal audit query was resolved within six weeks. The procurement director now has a clear monthly brief and a policy document that explains how the AI tool is used, what it does not do, and how it is monitored. The first yearly summary is scheduled for the group's audit committee in Q3 2025.
"We had fallen into using the tool without the governance structure around it. Anciensout helped us reconstruct that picture in a way that satisfied our auditors without having to pause the tool." — Procurement Director
REACH US
Contact Anciensout
Unit 3-12, Plaza Damansara
Jalan Medan Setia 1
50490 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
OFFICE HOURS
Response time: within 1 working day
YOUR TURN
Ready to Start a Conversation?
Reach out to us. We are happy to hear where your procurement team is and whether a Anciensout engagement would be a sensible next step.
Get in Touch