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Company size
500
Industry
Insurance
Founded
2009
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom
“Archways has enhanced time and resourcing we used to need for early market engagement. It gives us an efficient way to understand what’s out there, based on our custom requirements.”
Billy Simson, Procurement Manager, Apollo
Overview
Apollo Partners LLP, A Skyward Group Company is a UK-based insurance company operating across multiple lines of business. Apollo’s Procurement portfolio has a large concentration of long-term software contracts across IT and business teams, with many decisions surfacing at renewal time.
For Apollo, many of the most consequential software decisions do not start as greenfield evaluations. They surface at renewal time, when contracts signed years earlier come back into focus and teams must decide whether to renew, renegotiate, or replace.
Before using Archways, these moments were time-intensive and reactive. Early market engagement required manual research, informal assumptions about “known” vendors, and long cycles to align stakeholders on what was required.
Apollo now uses Archways as an early decision layer at renewal time, helping teams quickly understand the market, challenge default renewals, and engage the right suppliers with clearer requirements.
“Even if we renew with an existing supplier, having visibility into alternatives enhances the options available.”
Billy Simson, Procurement Manager, Apollo
The challenge
At renewal points, Apollo faced recurring issues:
- Resource heavy and time consuming software market assessment
Understanding market alternatives required heavy manual research. - Defaulting to familiar vendors
Stakeholders often knew what they wanted functionally, but not what the market actually offered, leading to shortlists biased toward large, well known tools that were not always right for Apollo’s size or needs.
How Apollo uses Archways
Apollo uses Archways primarily ahead of software renewal decisions, with a secondary use for new requirements raised by internal teams.
- Structuring requirements before engaging the market
Archways sessions are run with stakeholders using guided prompts to help teams clarify what they actually need and which trade-offs matter.This helps stakeholders understand the right questions to ask and produces a clearer, more accurate set of requirements before any supplier conversations begin.
- Shortlisting credible software alternatives at renewal time
When a contract approaches renewal and fit is in question, Archways surfaces realistic alternatives sized appropriately for Apollo, often revealing options stakeholders were not previously aware of. - Creating leverage for renegotiation or replacement
Even when Apollo ultimately renews, knowing what comparable suppliers offer and at what level gives procurement and IT teams tangible leverage during renewal discussions.
Outcomes
By introducing Archways as an early decision layer at renewal time, Apollo shifted software renewal decisions from reactive and time-intensive to more deliberate and evidence-led.
Reduced time spent evaluating alternatives
Early-stage evaluation effort was reduced by an estimated 60%
Stronger negotiating position at renewal
Earlier visibility into alternatives improved Apollo’s ability to approach renewal discussions.
Better alignment across procurement, IT, and business stakeholders
Running Archways sessions with stakeholders upfront helped teams align on requirements earlier, resulting in clearer shortlists and fewer late-stage surprises once supplier conversations began.
This allowed Apollo teams to enhance their renewal decisions to a more controlled, repeatable approach that holds up across procurement, IT, and business stakeholders.
