Mercado Libre achieved 3,471% ROI in the first month and unlocked $2.3M+ projected annual savings
90× faster, from months to days. Facing a headcount freeze and complex multi-country operations, Mercado Libre partnered with Horizon to engage 2,000+ employees at scale and move from manual discovery to measurable ROI.
FTE Capacity Unlocked
Projected Annual Savings
To first implementations
The Challenge
Mercado Libre, Inc., Latin America's leading e-commerce and fintech ecosystem, founded in 1999, operating in 18 countries with 84,000+ employees.
Initial situation: headcount freeze with 60-70 needed roles unfilled; 500+ contractors covering manual work. Multi-country complexity across Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile. Manual discovery model meant months of interviews covering less than 1% of the workforce. Fragmented systems: SAP, ARIBA, PIC, CLM, Jira, BigQuery, Tableau, Apache, Bypass. Duplication overload: 600+ initiatives, many overlapping or misaligned.
Business objectives: liberate workforce capacity, shorten procurement/contract cycles, benchmark across countries, and ensure all initiatives delivered ROI greater than 150%.
Methodology
The Horizon Approach
Manual discovery model: months of interviews covering less than 1% of the workforce, requiring 100+ coordination hours per initiative. Cost of inaction: 12k-13k hours wasted annually, 76 additional hires required, vendor onboarding delays (30-45 days), and strategic initiatives slowed by duplication.
Horizon delivered full organizational coverage: 100% of key functions engaged vs. less than 1% sampling in consulting. Speed: 90× faster (4-day discovery vs. 11-20 weeks). Outcomes: ROI-validated initiatives, not static reports. Security fit: SOC 2, encryption, RBAC, anonymization, API integration with existing systems.
Full-scale engagement in days: AI agents engaged 1,000 employees across Finance and related functions, covering 100% of targeted areas across 5 countries. Transcripts fused with SAP/ARIBA/PIC + BigQuery/Tableau data to expose value gaps. 24 initiatives co-created with ROI, effort, and step-by-step roadmap. Auto-generated board decks, RFPs, process maps, Jira epics. Digital Twin monitors processes in real time, flagging leaks and duplications.
The Results
Impact highlights: $2.3M+ projected annual savings (12k-13k hours automated), 76 FTE equivalents avoided, 3,471% ROI achieved in the first month, 24 initiatives prioritized (all ROI >150%), first implementations live in under 1 week.
Cross-country benchmarking revealed hidden duplications and best practices. Proof of adoption: 80+ Superconsultant interactions, 200+ platform accesses across 20 users, 100+ stakeholders actively engaged in review processes.
Key Results
76
FTE Capacity Unlocked
$2.3M
Projected Annual Savings
<1 week
To first implementations
| Process Area | Before | After | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| RFP/RFQ Processing | 14-16h/month per person, manual | Automated integration | Capacity freed, fewer errors |
| Contract Cycles | 7-45 days | <10 days | Faster revenue enablement |
| Vendor Onboarding | 30-45 days | 7-8 days | Supplier agility, compliance |
| Process Discovery | 11-20 weeks, <1% sample | 4 days, 5-country scope | Quicker, better decisions |
What People Said
“We needed rapid evidence and clear ROI prioritization to decide where to focus first.”
Strategic Transformation Director
“We went from manual interviews to full organizational coverage in days; we had immediate clarity on where to act first.”
Strategic Transformation Supervisor