Vivid Seats is a trusted, leading online ticket marketplace committed to becoming the ultimate partner for connecting fans to the live events, artists, and teams they love. Based on the belief that “Life Happens Live”, they provide one of the widest selections of events and tickets in North America and an industry leading Vivid Seats Rewards program that allows enrolled customers to earn towards reward credits with every purchase. Through its proprietary software, Vivid Seats drives the consumer and business ecosystem for live event ticketing and enables the power of shared experiences to unite people.

Revamping Procurement Strategy with Speed and Alignment

Founded in 2001, Vivid Seats has withstood countless changes and advances in the live event ticketing space. With the rise of online ticket sales, ticketing/live event mobile apps, and a new wave of data security measures, the company has been an adaptable and innovative industry leader – especially when it comes to their procurement processes.

With more partners, vendors, and contracts than ever before, Vivid Seats needed to improve their contract management process for multiple teams throughout the organization. The company hired Dave Quillin as Director of Procurement to streamline contract management and vendor relationships.

Dave was relieved to learn that Vivid Seats was already a customer of LinkSquares, which helped streamline his task of reshaping the procurement approach. Before, Vivid Seats had largely utilized LinkSquares as a successful contract repository and contract review tool. Now, it would also serve as the hub for a well-developed, company-wide procurement practice. Plus, by leveraging a trusted, familiar platform, employees could continue using a tool they already know, ensuring minimal disruption to their workflow.

LinkSquares was already effectively helping contracts move through the pipeline very quickly, with frequent 23-day turnarounds from request to signature, something Dave had rarely seen in his career as a procurement leader. This level of efficiency provided a stable foundation for building out a more robust, modernized procurement strategy. 

Finding New Ways to Enhance Process

As Dave and his team partnered with the Legal team to leverage LinkSquares as a tool to optimize procurement workflows, one of the most notable changes was how quickly other departments also embraced the process. Additionally, end users could see exactly where their requests stood without chasing down multiple stakeholders.

Instead of Procurement being seen as a potential bottleneck, it became a trusted partner that added value throughout the organization. With LinkSquares’ dashboards and reporting tools, the team could answer questions in minutes that previously took days of searching through emails and shared drives. The impact of this shift allowed the Vivid Seats team to immediately start reallocating that time back into efforts that would better drive and support business goals.

How Efficiency Impacts Organizational Culture

LinkSquares did more for the team than just save time, it improved visibility and accountability thanks to leveraging certain capabilities, including LinkSquares’ Microsoft Word integration and the Pen Assignment functionality, to get a better look at where contracts were in the process. Dave also remarked on the sense of reassurance the tool gave him when communicating with team members regarding contract approval and signature dates.

Today, the procurement team at Vivid Seats operates with greater clarity and collaboration, proving that the right technology can completely reshape how teams across the organization work together toward common goals. The combination of streamlined and customizable workflows, easy-to-access contract data, and improved communication across departments has allowed the procurement team to respond quickly to business needs while maintaining complete trust in the process.

Want to explore how LinkSquares can elevate your procurement process? Get in touch with our team to see the software in action.

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