Governing vendor onboarding across a global renewables business

Cyan Renewables provides marine and subsea services supporting the global energy transition, with operations across Singapore, Australia and Taiwan and an expanding international presence. 

The company was previously known as MMA Offshore. Following its acquisition by a Singapore-based offshore wind platform in July 2024, it officially rebranded as Cyan Renewables in July 2025.

The business continues to grow through acquisition, and each new entity brings its own vendors and its own governance requirements. With vendors spread across multiple countries, and different compliance obligations in each, a consistent onboarding process is essential.

Image courtesy of Cyan Renewables

Iris Law is General Manager of Supply Chain at Cyan Renewables and has been with the business for seven years. She oversees procurement and supply chain across the whole organisation, covering governance, vendor management, strategic sourcing and contract management, as well as the operations of the vessel and subsea projects.

Iris and her team led the move away from manual vendor onboarding, running a tender process before selecting Felix.

Challenges prior to Felix: Manual onboarding, regional complexity and limited visibility

Before Felix, vendor onboarding at Cyan Renewables involved manual documentation and email correspondence. As the business expanded, maintaining consistent visibility and administration across entities became increasingly resource-intensive.

Key challenges included:

• Different requirements for every region and entity: Cyan Renewables works with vendors around the world, and each location has its own governance requirements, including ESG, modern slavery, anti-bribery and know-your-customer obligations. The team had to remember what was required for each entity and each type of vendor.
  
  
• Limited onboarding visibility: Requestors often relied on email updates to track onboarding progress, resulting in additional follow-ups with the administration team.
  
  
• Limited process automation: Vendor onboarding documents and approvals were managed manually, making it more resource-intensive to maintain consistent documentation, monitor requirements and prepare audit records.
  
  
• Manual chasing of expired information: To find expired insurances, the team had to run an Excel report and then chase each vendor by email to update their details.
  
  
• Opportunity to standardise: Cyan Renewables sought a scalable platform that could support implementation across different entities and governance requirements.

“We have vendors and entities around the world, each with different requirements. Managing those requirements manually required considerable coordination. We wanted a system that would improve consistency and give requestors clearer visibility of onboarding progress.”

The solution: Visibility, control and one central record

Cyan Renewables uses Felix for vendor prequalification and onboarding, giving the business a governed, standardised process across its entities.

• Onboarding status for requestors: Authorised requestors can view vendor onboarding progress in Felix, reducing the need for routine status enquiries to the administration team.
  
  
• Structured controls: Felix supports mandatory documentation requirements and configured approval workflows, helping reduce the risk of incomplete submissions and manual oversight.
  
  
• Centralised documentation: Vendor onboarding documents are maintained in Felix and are available to authorised users according to their access permissions.
  
  
• Automated expiry reminders: Felix sends reminders to vendors regarding expiring documentation, reducing the need for manual tracking and follow-up.
  
  
• Tags for every requirement: Cyan Renewables uses Felix’s Tagging feature to capture payment terms, HSEQ passing grades and the entities each vendor needs to be registered in. Tags make it easier to categorise vendors and pull clear reports.
  
  
• Flexibility across entities: Felix lets the team build the process to suit different entities and governance requirements, without forcing every region into an identical process.

“Felix has improved the way we onboard vendors. Structured documentation and approval workflows support consistent governance, while a central platform provides greater visibility of onboarding progress.”

The results: A traceable, measurable onboarding process

Felix has given Cyan Renewables a process it can track, report on and keep improving:

• Digitised vendor prequalification and onboarding: In the first seven months of 2026, Cyan Renewables onboarded 161 vendors through Felix. The platform provides a more traceable process for managing onboarding across multiple entities and regions. 
  
  
• More efficient administration and reporting: Felix helps reduce manual administrative effort associated with vendor onboarding and management reporting.
  
  
• Vendor management dashboards: Cyan Renewables uses Felix dashboards to track onboarding time, see which approval step is taking the longest and which entities are requesting the most vendors. The team uses this information to improve internal processes.
  
  
• Insight to support consolidation: A spike in new vendor requests prompts two questions. Are requestors unaware that an existing vendor already provides the service in that location? Or is the supply chain team not sourcing enough vendors for a business unit’s needs? Either way, the team can step in to educate requestors or improve its own sourcing.

“Felix provides a traceable platform that helps us report on vendor onboarding volumes and turnaround times. The dashboards highlight areas where we can improve our processes and focus our follow-up efforts.”

Integrations: Approved in Felix, ready in IFS

IFS supports Cyan Renewables’ purchasing transactions, while Felix supports vendor onboarding and approval. Integration between the systems helps streamline the transfer of approved vendor information and reduce duplicate data entry.

Previously, vendor information was processed through manual forms, approvals and data entry. This required additional coordination between requestors, approvers and the vendor creation team.

The integration between Felix and IFS enables approved vendor information to be transferred automatically, significantly reducing manual data entry and improving data consistency. Exceptions may still require review or intervention.

“Having vendor onboarding in Felix and purchasing in IFS works well for us. The integration reduces repetitive data entry and helps us manage vendor information more efficiently.”

Scaling globally: One platform, a stronger foundation

Felix has also supported Cyan Renewables through growth and change:

• Support for business growth: Felix provides a consistent onboarding framework that can be adapted as Cyan Renewables’ operational requirements evolve.

• Flexibility across entities: Requirements are adjusted to fit each new organisation. Because Felix is flexible, each entity and its governance requirements can be accommodated without forcing every region into an identical process.

Cyan Renewables is progressively extending its use of Felix across its operations, with implementation timing subject to internal planning and readiness.

The regional expansion approach focuses on two priorities:

• Standardisation: The business wants a consistent vendor onboarding process across every business unit.

• Operational adoption: Experience from existing implementations helps inform user training, process improvements and subsequent rollouts.

With a shared platform across regions, Cyan Renewables expects to improve visibility of its vendor base. Where a vendor supports more than one entity, existing information can be reused to reduce duplication, subject to the applicable entity-specific due diligence, documentation and approvals.

Image courtesy of Cyan Renewables.

Final thoughts and recommendation

For Cyan Renewables, Felix supports more consistent vendor onboarding governance, improves visibility and reduces reliance on manual administration as the business operates across multiple regions.

The Felix implementation team worked with Cyan Renewables to understand the requirements of Supply Chain, Legal, Finance and HSEQ and respond to questions during implementation.

“The Felix team listens to our requirements and works with us to find practical solutions. They have been responsive and supportive throughout implementation and ongoing improvements.”

That support has continued well beyond go-live. Felix works closely with Cyan Renewables to act on its feedback. For example, the vendor invite justification form, previously handled as an attachment, is now built directly into Felix following the team’s request. A monthly meeting with Cyan Renewables’ Customer Success Manager covers requirements, new releases and dashboard insights, giving Iris the opportunity to review new features and recommend them to the wider team.

When asked whether she would recommend Felix to other organisations, Iris said:

“Yes. Felix can be valuable for organisations looking to strengthen structure, visibility and consistency in vendor onboarding. For us, it provides a central platform to manage vendor information across the business.”