Who does e-procurement really benefit? Buyers, purchasing departments or the company itself?

Unsurprisingly, the answer is all three! Wax Digital has conducted a survey of 200 purchasing
professionals to explore this question in depth. According to respondents, the advantages at the
concrete advantages of each one.can be divided into three key categories: opportunistic, tactical
and strategic. Let's look more closely

E-procurement: "Opportunistic" advantages.

32% of people surveyed believe that e-procurement offers opportunistic benefits, namely "quick
wins" and short-term benefits. Here, it is primarily a question of direct savings on purchasing
costs.

Examples include:

 Online auctions which work both ways, with suppliers "selling off" their products and
buyers posting their requirements to get the best offer.
 Large orders from a single supplier which reduces the cost per item.
 Control over "unscheduled" or "ad hoc" purchases which ensure that buyers benefit from
conditions that have been discussed with the selected distributor.

In addition to quick wins, these examples offer buyers the opportunity to show management
teams the added value that e-procurement solutions can offer. Initial returns on investment and
the resulting profit margins may prompt consideration of future investments in this type of
technology (e-sourcing, Procure to Pay, e-invoicing, contract management etc.).

Tactical advantages .

Once again, 32% believe that e-procurement has "tactical" advantages. These include mid-term
benefits such as saving time and increasing efficiency for teams, and improving productivity and
fast decision making.

These advantages are mostly a result of automating processes in terms of placing orders and
managing suppliers, for example. In fact, solutions can be fully adapted to a company's needs
(pre-defined list of suppliers, validation workflows etc.).

According to the survey, buyers particularly value the time savings and reduction in errors, in
addition to the full transparency of their company's purchasing habit. Wax Digital expressed its
surprise that purchasing departments do not place more focus on such advantages.

Internal customers can obtain the items they want from a catalogue of approved
Items through an on-line requisition and ordering system. spend is directed to draw off existing
contracts.

Compliance to policy is improved as users can quickly locate

products and services from preferred suppliers and are unable to create Reducing costs

Costs can be reduced by leveraging volume, having structured supplier relationships and by
using system improvements to reduce external spend while improving quality and supplier
performance. E-procurement eliminates paperwork, rework and errors.

Visibility of spend

Centralized tracking of transactions enables full reporting on requisitions, items purchased,

orders processes and payments made. E-procurement advantages extend to ensuring compliance
with existing and established contracts.

Productivity

Procurement staff can be released from processing orders and handling low value transactions to
concentrate on strategic sourcing and improving supplier relationships.

Controls

Standardized approval processes and formal workflows ensure that the correct level of
authorization is applied to each transaction and that maverick purchases.

Using technology.

E-procurement advantages can only be fully realized when the systems and processes to manage
it are in place. Software tools are needed to create the standard procurement documentation:
electronic requests for information (e-RFI), requests for proposal (e-RFP) and requests for
quotation (e-RFQ).

These are proven methods to source goods and make the framework agreements that offer the
best prices.

An adequate, fully integrated e-procurement approach is needed for overall success. Additional
programs provide the framework for the supplier databases and spend management as well as
holding key vendor information and being an electronic repository for contracts.

All these facilities cost money and a clear business case must be made for e-procurement. In
most cases this is fairly clear that cost savings are possible.
It pays for companies to spend money on e-procurement technology, this investment will boost
efficiency. The longer term reduction in costs will enable companies to direct their resources to
more strategic initiatives.

E-procurement advantages are significant bottom-line benefits, including cost reduction, process
efficiencies, spending controls and compliance.

The are following are cons or disadvantages of e-procurement that make some of the people
does not know the important of the e-procurement in some different part in the way of
purchasing the product by using the social network.

Micromanagement.

E-procurement software tools offer features for detailed data analytics and classification.
However, the danger is you can get carried away by the multiple customization options. There
may be a high number of fields which can be confusing and could reduce the platform’s
reporting efficiency. The solution is to find the customization level that is suitable for your
enterprise.

Time-Consuming Approval Chains.

The benefit of detailed insight can also be a drawback. Your company’s reviewers may get
bogged down by it and can take longer to review procurement details and pass them to the next
reviewer. Therefore, it is essential to eliminate such bottlenecks to ensure the approval chain
does not get blocked.

Not Ideal for Direct Materials.

E-procurement works best for purchasing catalog-based indirect materials such as office
supplies. You are sure to get good ROI for purchases like these. However, e-procurement may
not be ideal when purchasing direct services and materials. Therefore, it would not be advisable
to use it for negotiating purchases that are part of large and expensive deals. 

Supplier on boarding Problems

Older vendors could find it difficult to get used to the new online procurement software systems.
Small businesses can have a hard time updating catalogs and other info with the platform.
Therefore, it is important to select tech-savvy suppliers to fully benefit from e-procurement. 

Over reliance on technology and the disabling of due diligence .this often lead to devising,
shortages, delays, and supply chain.
Increases complexity often e-procurement.

solution and complexity and cost, usually because due diligence if taken to understand user
requirement.

Conclusion.

Keep track of the  and apply them in your company to enhance efficiency and productivity.

This post was created by Finances Online — an independent review platform for B2B, SaaS and
financial solutions
The procurement process is not simple and straightforward. It’s complicated. The manual
procurement process is very labour-intensive, time-consuming, and involves a lot of paperwork.

On the other hand, when you use technology in your procurement process, it saves you a lot of
time. It makes the whole process much simpler and hassle-free. These are just a few of many
advantages of leveraging technology in the procurement process

Before talking about the key advantages of using technology in your procurement process, let’s
quickly look at the most common issues in the procurement process.

Major issues with a procurement process.

Companies face problems in their procurement processes because of an ineffective process. It

also leads to the occurrence of human errors in the process.

The following are some of the most significant procurement issues that can affect your business:

Although it can solve half of your procurement related issues, it’s a challenge to identify a high-
quality vendor for your business.

Redundancy and inefficient procurement processes often result in disorganized data

management. A chaotic data management system will further invite problems like the
duplication of payments or delays in payment.

If there’s redundancy in the procurement process, it may lead to an increase in average supplier
lead time.

There are high chances of companies ending up with low-quality materials when they don’t track
or inefficiently track the quality of incoming materials.
It’s difficult for companies to prevent fraud and duplication of contracts. That’s because they
have an ineffective fraud protection system in place.

So what are the advantages of using technology?

Improves efficiency and speed.

Technology can help you increase the efficiency and speed of your procurement process
significantly, resulting in time savings.

Important tasks can be dealt with using technology instead of getting a person to do them. This
reduces the work of your procurement team and gives them more time to handle more complex
tasks in the procurement process.

Decreases the average cycle time.

With a manual procurement process, your team likely spends most of their time drawing up and
reworking contracts. However, with the help of technology, you can use online purchase
approvals and order templates. You can easily make minor required changes and create contracts
that are suitable for your company.

You can leverage technology to store your existing contracts and reuse them whenever needed
rather than working on a new one every time.

Eliminates manual document storing system.

A manual procurement process often leads to a lot of paperwork and those papers eventually pile
up. It can be difficult for your procurement team to search for and track a single expense
document. Also, it’s not easy to organize and store these papers.

That’s why it’s important that you leverage technology and completely eliminate your paper-
based storing system. When you use a paperless information and data storing system, it will help
you and your team in many ways. For instance, it will become much easier for you to organize,
access, and track your documents whenever you want.

Makes your procurement process transparent.

With the help of technology, you can conduct audits effectively. An audit will give you 360-
visibility, and increase the transparency of the whole process.

This will make sure that there’s no misuse of your budget and that it’s spent on necessary and
relevant services and/or products. With the help of technology, you can measure your KPIs more
efficiently and effectively.

Increases data accuracy.

Some 48% of the companies agree that manual data entry and an inefficient process is one of the
top workflow process challenges. It results in inaccurate data entry. Which, in turn, can increase
the chances of errors in the procurement process.

However, you can address this issue with the help of automation. Automation will help you
streamline the data process. As a result, you will witness a decrease in errors and a significant
increase in the accuracy of data.

It helps you keep all of your data and documents organized so that you can easily and quickly
track any vendor’s contract. Technology also helps you create a more transparent procurement
system.

To learn more about how you can deal with procurement issues with the help of technology,
check out the infographic created by PurchaseControl.

Every organisation, no matter how large or small and irrespective of the sector in which it
operates, has a need at some time for print. It is important that print is procured professionally
and effectively not just from the commercial point of view, but also because the image which a
printed product conveys about your company will influence how your suppliers and customers
view your organisation. This handbook is intended to guide you through the process of procuring
print and to give some insight into the technical nature of print buying. It is intended to be a
starting-point for the effective procurement of print and should be supported with further
research and training for those people who are new to this area of purchasing. The print market-
place The printing industry was historically structured around general printing firms (so-called
'flat-shops') and newspaper publishing. Since the 1960s, the cost and rapid obsolescence of 'new
technology', coupled with client and consumer expectations, have pushed an ever-increasing
number of general printers into product specialisation. Like other businesses, printers understand
the benefits of economies of scale, the concentration of resources and skills and the advantages
of the green-field site. The essential message to you as a buyer is to: • discover whether or not, or
more likely how many, printers specialise in the work you are seeking to contract • not confine
yourself to your own locality; research the national & international provision • it is unlikely that
you will be asked to publish a book, a mail-order catalogue, a national or regional newspaper, or
a consumer periodical, and so the sectors most likely to be of interest are: • general printing
(business stationery, house journals and specialist magazines, advertising literature and sales
brochures and so on) • posters and point-of-sale material

Invitation to tender or quote.

When requesting suppliers to tender or quote for jobs you should, beforehand, attempt to find
out as much as possible from your customer about the job specification so that you can convey
this information to the printer. Your relationship with the printer will deteriorate if he is asked to
expend time on jobs that continually change during the pre-order process. What should the
tender contain? The tender should set out the following information: Job title or number
,Tender/quote return date ,Size of job (for example A4/A5 etc.) ,Details of job: number of pages,
layout style, colours ,Paper specification (type, weight, quality and whether it is to be free) ,For
brochures/books (a) cover details (b) board type for cover (as paper specification) (c) method of
binding/finishing ,Packaging instructions ,Date artwork available if not part of the job ,Date for
proof delivery ,Date for job completion ,Price (a) number of copies (b) plus run-on in batch size
of, Terms and conditions applicable to contract