Transform Your Energy Procurement Processes Today
Discover industry-specific solutions that cut procurement costs by 15%
Imagine sitting down at your office on Monday morning, opening your laptop, and instead of focusing on strategically optimizing your company's energy costs, you're browsing through endless rows of Excel spreadsheets on your screen. While searching through 15 different files for a simple supplier data point, you know that somewhere else an intelligent system would have already automatically aggregated this information. Yet here you are, in 2025, manually copying data from one spreadsheet to another.
This isn't an extreme example – this is the reality for a significant portion of middle managers in the European energy sector. And these procurement challenges only intensify as the industry pivots toward renewable energy.
If you work as a procurement manager at an energy company, you're probably familiar with Katalin's situation.
Katalin, a procurement manager at an energy company, shares her story: "Monday morning at eight o'clock I sit down at the office, and I need to evaluate how last week's gas contract negotiations went. But to figure this out, I first need to open 5 different Excel files, then compare the Central Statistical Office price index with the market report, then send 3 emails to different colleagues to get the missing data. By 10 o'clock I finally have all the information, but by then the morning has flown by, and in the afternoon meeting I have to explain why I can't yet tell whether the deal was worth it."
Energy sector procurement managers spend 60-80% of their working time on manual administration instead of concentrating on energy procurement strategy. This means that within an 8-hour workday, they can only dedicate 1-2 hours to value-creating procurement activities.
An average procurement manager at a Hungarian energy company works with 15-20 different Excel spreadsheets daily. From supplier data through contract statuses to budget reports, everything is in separate files, often in different formats and without version control.
Péter, a procurement coordinator at a regional energy provider, shares his experience: "Last week I spent 3 hours trying to figure out which of our suppliers offered a 15% discount on natural gas. The information was scattered across 4 different places, and it finally turned out that the discount had already expired. If we had a central system, I would have found it in 5 minutes."
What does this result in? The constant manual work causes frustration and makes it impossible for procurement managers to leverage their professional knowledge and strategic thinking. Many of them feel like they're working as administrative assistants when they were hired as procurement experts.
The challenge: The 49% increase in energy prices between Q1 2024 and Q1 2025 has created volatility that's impossible to manage with traditional procurement methods. Meanwhile, due to the concentrated structure of the Hungarian energy market, the selection of competitors is also limited.
András, a procurement leader at an industrial consumer, shares his dilemma: "Last October we decided to wait until the end of the winter season with the gas contract because we thought it would be cheaper in spring. Instead, prices rose by 30%. Now we're locked into an expensive contract for 2 years, and I have to explain this in every monthly report to the CFO."
The advance of renewable energy has fundamentally changed the nature of procurement tasks. While previously buying goods and services, today a procurement manager handles complex, 10-20 year PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) contracts that resemble financial instruments more than traditional procurement agreements.
The solar energy boom and bust in Hungary: From 2015 to 2023, Hungary's solar energy capacity grew from 110 MW to 5,600 MW. This explosive growth overloaded the grid infrastructure, and today "zero MVA available connection capacity" situations are common, setting renewable energy projects back by years.
Virág, a procurement manager at a renewable energy company, shares her case: "During the construction of our solar park, it turned out that our Chinese supplier went bankrupt. Suddenly I had to deal not only with procuring new panels but also with the fact that the entire project requires an ESG audit because we had to exclude the possibility of forced labor in the supply chain. Traditional procurement training didn't prepare me for this."
Procurement managers spend 25-30% of their working time keeping up with constantly changing regulations. In addition to Hungarian national requirements, compliance with EU directives (NIS2, CBAM, GDPR, DORA) as well as industry-specific standards (ISO 27001, IAEA requirements for nuclear) is simultaneously necessary.
Example of regulatory complexity: A simple cross-border energy trading agreement requires compliance with 8 different regulatory frameworks, handling three currencies, and approval from authorities in multiple countries.
The typical conflict situation: The CFO expects cost reduction, the COO demands 100% supply security, the legal department wants risk-free contracts, while the sustainability manager sets aggressive green energy goals. The procurement manager often faces an impossible task: satisfy everyone at once.
Gábor, energy procurement manager at the Hungarian subsidiary of a multinational company, reflects: "Headquarters says to reduce costs by 10%. Local management asks that there be no power outages. Compliance wants all contracts to comply with the new NIS2 requirements. The sustainability team talks about operating with 100% renewable energy by 2025. And I have to solve all this while our IT system is still stuck in 2018."
Renewable energy procurement fundamentally differs from traditional energy procurement. This isn't about commodities but complex projects where the procurement manager must become a project manager, technical expert, and financial analyst all at once.
The Most Important Differences:
Traditional energy procurement:
Renewable energy procurement:
Time recovery: By automating routine tasks, only 20-30% of working time would need to be spent on administration instead of 60-80%. This means a procurement manager could dedicate 5-6 hours daily to strategic tasks instead of the current 1-2 hours.
Decision support: With real-time market data and analytics, the impact of price volatility could be significantly reduced. Procurement decisions would be data-driven instead of the current "trust in luck" approach.
Risk management: Integrated supplier risk management and ESG monitoring would reduce the failure risk of renewable projects.
Compliance automation: After setting compliance parameters, the system independently checks compliance, enabling proactive intervention to prevent irregularities.
The Hungarian energy sector stands at the intersection of three critical trends:
Leading energy companies have already taken action. The MVM Group is launching smart meter programs, and regional players are testing AI-based procurement solutions. The question is no longer whether digital transformation is needed in the energy sector, but when and how.
Finally, from a procurement leader at an energy company that has undergone successful digital transformation: "Two years ago, I was also searching through Excel spreadsheets. This morning at 8:10 I sat down at the office, opened the dashboard, and in 5 minutes I saw what tender opportunities there are, what the critical supplier risks are, and where I can most easily save 50,000 euros. In the 2 years we've been using the new system, we've reduced energy costs by 15%, and I really work as a procurement expert, not as an administrator."
The decision is yours. The technology already exists. The question is just when you'll start taking advantage of it.
Procurement Software Evaluation Checklist - Detailed checklist to evaluate your software opportunities. The checklist includes:
Download the procurement software evaluation checklist here.
