7 PRACTICAL

REASONS TO UPGRADE
TO A CLOUD PLATFORM
FOR PROCUREMENT &
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
7 Ways Cloud Computing Can
Transform Procurement and
Supply Chain Management
Migrating procurement and
supply chain management to
the cloud has become a top
priority for CIOs and other
key decision-makers. It’s not
about cloud hype; it’s about
cloud capabilities. Simply put,
cloud is a much more effective
and efficient IT model for
procurement and supply
chain than legacy on-premises
infrastructure.
W H I T E PA P E R
With the right cloud solution, organizations can eliminate silos and
unify disparate systems for procurement, supply chain, ERP, finance and
more. They can use automation, analytics, machine learning and artificial
intelligence (AI) on all data, including social media and other unstructured
sources, which are growing exponentially.
In addition, cloud allows organizations to respond quickly to business
opportunities and changing customer requirements, as many organizations
have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time,
cloud lowers costs, accelerates cybersecurity response and provides more
efficient options for disaster recovery and business availability.
When you add it all up, it becomes obvious that the future of procurement
and supply chain is in the cloud—which is why most organizations
have at least dabbled in the cloud and many have launched broader,
companywide cloud migration initiatives.
One of the challenges, however, even for companies that have moved
everything to the cloud, is understanding and defining what’s next. Many
companies have spent tremendous amounts of time and money to move
to the cloud but have not taken advantage of all its benefits. If you have
the same capabilities as before, why do it?
Arrival in the cloud is not the ultimate goal. It is merely the starting point
for a transformational journey. If you accept the idea that cloud is indeed
transformational, the next logical set of questions is: What exactly is being
transformed? What are the things you can do in the cloud that you could
 7 WAYS CLOUD COMPUTING CAN TRANSFORM PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
not do with previous procurement and supply chain
models? Where, what and how can you innovate?
Every organization will strive to come up with its own
answers to these questions in order to leverage cloud
for its own competitive differentiation. But there will
also be areas of commonality, particularly when it comes
to procurement and supply chain management.
What are those common themes? Here are seven ideas
to provide food for thought.
No. 1. Reduce risk: Cloud reduces procurement and
supply chain risk in many ways. With a cloud platform,
organizations have an opportunity to eliminate silos
between applications and their data, so decisions
can be made in real time, using current information
and analytics. Extensive automation speeds decision-
making and reduces paper and manual processes that
can be the cause of mistakes and a roadblock to taking
fast, data-driven actions. Cloud provides a centralized
platform to manage areas such as cybersecurity,
regulatory compliance and governance. Organizations
can respond in real time to threats, disseminate threat
intelligence via the cloud and centralize cybersecurity,
IT governance and compliance by eliminating silos.
Tasks such as patching and updates become much
simpler and automated with a cloud-native platform.
No. 2. Transform customer service: With a
cloud platform for procurement and supply chain
management, organizations can create a massive data
lake that houses all data, structured and unstructured.
Combined with automation and tools such as machine
learning and AI, organizations can transform service for
customers and partners across the entire procurement
and supply chain continuum. The idea of a self-driving
and self-correcting supply chain becomes a very real
possibility. This will result in dramatically reduced costs
and risks, enabling data-driven decisions based on
virtually any factor that is appropriate. For example, that
could include intelligent inventory management using
predictive analytics and machine learning to transform
materials acquisition to an outside-in activity driven by
multiple, real-time data streams as opposed to legacy
models built on historical supply and demand data.
2
No. 3. Remodel product development: Just as cloud
enables a transformation of customer service, it also
gives organizations a chance to rethink how new
products and services are developed. Cloud empowers
DevOps teams to easily integrate agile processes with
modern tools such as containers and microservices.
An idea can go from concept to execution in a
matter of weeks and be scaled quickly and easily. The
combination of cloud speed, agility and economics
gives business leaders the opportunity to solve business
problems through product development. Cloud makes
it conceivable to approach business problems in a
completely new way—using software and creating apps
to quickly create opportunities based on real-time data
and intelligence.
No. 4. Transform the workplace and business
processes: Just moving existing workspaces to the
cloud won’t automatically change processes or cultures.
The huge opportunity is to redesign the workplace
because of the unique capabilities that cloud delivers.
Cloud makes it much easier to support remote workers
as well as IoT, as many organizations are realizing
as they respond to COVID-19. More than 80% of IT
decision-makers have ramped up their use of cloud in
direct response to the pandemic and the concurrent
shift to remote work patterns.1 With cloud, IT teams can
work remotely and still onboard, secure and support
remote users. Cloud collaboration tools such as video,
chat, messaging and whiteboarding make teams,
suppliers and partners more productive and efficient.
1 “Coronavirus: Enterprise Cloud Adoption Accelerates in the Face of COVID-19,
Says Research,” ComputerWeekly.com, June 18, 2020
 7 WAYS CLOUD COMPUTING CAN TRANSFORM PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
No. 5. Fully embrace digital procurement and
supply chain: Cloud offers the opportunity to go fully
digital, meaning organizations can do more than just
improve existing functions that are already handled
in on-premises software—they can now easily digitize
processes and functions that remain manual or offline.
These include processes such as warehouse receipts,
paper work orders and other paper-based processes,
plus any activity that happens on a spreadsheet. With
cloud, virtually every business activity can be brought
into the digital workspace, eliminating application silos
and the lack of access to all data, both of which are a
roadblock to supply chain efficiency and innovation.
No. 6. Accelerate everything: In procurement
and supply chain, speed matters. With everything
connected and automated, and with real-time data
and analytics, the organization can respond much
faster to anything. Cloud accelerates DevOps teams
and development cycles, which means faster and more
reliable deployment of new services. It accelerates the
ability to react in real time to actual events. Examples
include automatically changing delivery routes based
on severe weather; ensuring critical medical supplies
and vaccines are in stock and made available to
healthcare organizations when they need them; and
building an informational web portal in a matter of days
to share and disseminate COVID-19-related updates
and other critical information.
No. 7. Empower innovation: Once the organization’s
procurement and supply chain management systems
are in the cloud, it is time to look at what else can be
done. It’s not just that everything is faster, more agile
and easier to scale; it’s the new reality that organizations
can do things they’ve never done before. A real-time,
ABOUT OUR SPONSOR
GEP SOFTWARE™ provides award-winning digital procurement and supply chain platforms that help global
enterprises become more agile, resilient, competitive and profitable.
GEP SOFTWARE is part of Clark, NJ-based GEP® — the world’s leading provider of procurement and supply chain
strategy, software and managed services. www.gepsoftware.com
This content was commissioned by GEP and produced by TechTarget Inc.
3
reactive supply network lets organizations use social
media preferences to develop new products and make
data-driven, real-time, automated decisions to aim
existing products at specific demographics. It enables
organizations to eliminate paper completely and
automate payments. It lets businesses apply machine
learning and AI to manufacturing and distribution
processes to manage costs, eliminate waste and
increase productivity. The list goes on. In many cases,
the possibilities are limited more by what can be
imagined than by what the cloud can deliver.
TAKING THE NEXT STEP
Moving procurement and supply chain management
to the cloud is not a matter of listening to the hype or
merely following corporate dictates to be cloud-first or
cloud-only. It is about using the cloud as the foundation
for truly rethinking and transforming an organization to
take advantage of capabilities that were never before
available and are still unavailable to companies that
continue to depend on on-premises solutions.
The opportunity to use the cloud to achieve
competitive advantage through digital procurement
and supply chain is still available for organizations ready
and willing to seize the moment. It is still early in the
market’s development, but things are moving quickly
in the cloud’s direction, accelerated by the COVID-19
crisis and the need to react to a changing environment
with speed, agility, automation, data-driven analytics,
security and reliability.
To learn how to transform your business through a
cloud-native platform for procurement and supply
chain management, please visit GEP.com.
The Intuitive, User-First Cloud Integration Platform.

There is a paradox in modern business technology. Rapid evolution in the supply chain and procurement space
necessitate integrating next-generation technology to leverage competitive advantage with legacy systems. Yet,
integration is often a complex and time-intensive task that requires the cooperation of IT teams, third-party system
specialists and custom development that negate the goals of speed-to-market. There is rarely an integration process
that doesn’t involve the ad hoc costs associated with upscaling technology infrastructure and resources.

GEP CLICK™ is a next-gen integrator unifying GEP’s procurement and supply chain solutions with clients’ ERP/CRM
systems in just a few clicks.
 2

THE LOW CODE /

NO CODE PLATFORM KEY FEATURES
Simple and self-service enabled
Let’s face it: ERPs and other key legacy software are an
user experience
investment that the enterprise continues to rely on for
critical functions. The rise of cloud technologies have Built for the cloud and powered by
enhanced, not replaced, ERPs as foundational pillars. Microsoft Azure
The problem is that integrating with them is always Native proprietary artificial intelligence and
complex. Not anymore. GEP CLICK is built for business machine-learning technology, GEP
users. Connect to any software application, CRM or MINERVA™
legacy system and integrate multiple ERPs – including Microsoft One Cloud security
SAP and Oracle – to unlock the full potential of supply and compliance
chain and procurement technology without needing
Hosting, upgrades, maintenance and
specialized IT consultants or coding knowledge. uptime warranty from GEP

GEP CLICK is designed for procurement and supply No specialized IT teams required, built for
chain pros who need to increase productivity, improve business integrators
planning efforts and accelerate implementation cycles. Multiple deployment options featuring
pre-packaged integrations
Powered by Microsoft Azure, GEP CLICK takes the pain
out of integration projects. Easily integrate your legacy
systems with GEP’s cutting-edge software. Cut the time
and cost out of integration. Deploy components at your
own pace and enjoy a unified experience across
ADVANCED
on-premises or cloud solutions, on any system, anywhere
in the world without any disruptive upscaling or
CAPABILITIES:
infrastructure replacement. Single cloud integration for all
GEP software

POWER ALL YOUR

Deploy heterogenous landscapes on a
single cloud with central API management

BUSINESS PROCESSES Out-of-the-box integrations for on-premise

ERPs and other cloud solutions
Beyond GEP’s software solutions, GEP CLICK can help Simplified, self-service business process
your enterprise extend integrations, providing support and integrations (BYOI)
enabling expansion across all your unique business
Direct integration with global suppliers
process, all in one place. With GEP CLICK’s out of the box
Predictive insights and monitoring for
pre-built integration content, you can discover and unify all
end-to-end visibility
the necessary components for integrating on-premise or
cloud applications with various GEP solutions. GEP CLICK Build mobile and digital experiences by
testing, releasing, and monitoring
empowers you to view and access GEP software APIs to
customized apps
explore, discover, test and consume all the APIs available in
the GEP cloud ecosystem.

FACT SHEET: GEP CLICK

 3

SELF-SERVICE: SIMPLIFIED INTEGRATION

FOR BUSINESS USERS
Make your enterprise faster and more agile with GEP CLICK, designed to be a self-service platform that makes the
integration experience easy to understand and easier to use. Configure the integration with intuitive drag-and-drop
tools that will allow you to be ready to go in just a few clicks. No longer find yourself dependent on your enterprise’s
IT organization or even on GEP’s technical resources.

Deliver hardware and software savings thanks to the cloud-native platform that doesn’t need your existing
technology infrastructure to be replaced or upgraded. Enable your IT team to run lean and focus on more mission
critical projects as integration is no longer their concern. GEP has it under control.

FACT SHEET: GEP CLICK

 4

BUILT FOR USERS, FUTURE-PROOFED

FOR EVERYONE
GEP CLICK follows a user-first software philosophy that focuses on intuitive designs and user experiences with
easy-to-use interfaces and dashboards. GEP CLICK offers multiple deployment options that enable you to:

Integrate ERP solutions such as SAP, S/4 HANA and MDG-S on one cloud-native platform

Integrate across heterogeneous landscapes using hybrid integrations

Deploy API to API integration using middleware to create a unified landscape

GEP CLICK is the cloud integration platform that allows enterprises to integrate their ERP, CRM and legacy
systems into a single digital solution that slashes the cost of integration and reduces implementation time. GEP
CLICK’s cloud integration platform as a service (iPaaS) enables companies to:

Cut multi-system integration projects from months to weeks or days

Minimize IT support for implementation

Reduce reliance on costly third-party resources and consultants for integration work

Ensure end-to-end data integrity from sales through sourcing, purchasing, inventory management to invoicing

100 Walnut Avenue, Clark, NJ 07066 | P 732.382.6565 | info@gep.com | www.gep.com

Clark, NJ | Houston | Chicago | Toronto | Mexico City | San Jose, Costa Rica | São Paulo | Dublin | London
Amsterdam | Frankfurt | Prague | Pretoria | Mumbai | Hyderabad | Kuala Lumpur | Singapore | Shanghai | Sydney

Copyright © 2020 GEP. All rights reserved.