Top challenges facing procurement teams today

The world of procurement and supply chain is going through an unprecedented pace of change this year. Thanks to the enforcement of GDPR, growing menace of cybercrimes and call for ethical sourcing, procurement leaders are facing newer challenges.

Amidst all the changes in both macro and micro environment, it is observed that the role of procurement has grown to be a strategic one unlike earlier when it was seen as a support, non-strategic function. The increasing level of digitization has further enforced this development and procurement teams are now gearing up and be well-placed to meet the challenges. Here are the prime ones:

Optimizing spending and preventing leakages

Procurement leaders always face the pressure to optimize their costs and prevent any leakages in the procurement processes. However, this may not always be possible currently as a lot of activities are performed manually and it becomes difficult to keep track of many tasks. This approach needs to change.

However, with the advent of digital technologies in procurement, a vast number of such tasks can now be automated and thus tracked easily through integrated online platforms. e-Invoicing, for instance, can help rule out chances of errors that may hamper the procurement and payment systems. Similarly e-dashboard tools can empower procurement leaders with real time information on the spend and thus keep a close check on the ongoing situation. All the inventories can thus be monitored in the real time and new supplies can be ordered accordingly.

Enhancing the efficacy of procurement processes

The online reporting and analytics tools can be really instrumental in enhancing the entire procurement system. Data and information is key to making effective decisions, and the implementation of digitized platforms can actually bolster the level of transparency in the whole system.

When the most critical activities in the system become transparent, then all the remaining activities fall in place automatically. The leakages in cost and savings can thus be identified more easily as all the workflows get interconnected to each other through online modes thereby reducing the chances of mis-communication and erroneous decisions. 

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