The obstacles procurement teams have to overcome are ever-increasing. These procurement process roadblocks can be conquered through the optimization of data and by embracing digital transformation.
The Current State of Category Sourcing
In the current market, procurement teams are competing against continual roadblocks. From supply chain issues and raw material shortages, to inflation and fuel surcharges, the number of factors going into correctly sourcing a category is ever-increasing. Procurement teams must be equipped to respond to a dynamically changing market while obtaining best-in-class pricing in the face of these challenges. Taking a data-driven approach can optimize and transform your procurement process; and provide valuable insights, vendor consolidation and value far beyond savings.
The rise in procurement software usage has increased visibility to internal and external data, which can help a procurement team combat
Data Visibility Within Consolidation Efforts
One of the recurring nuisances of the procurement sourcing process is lack of data visibility. To address this, a valuable data exercise procurement can perform is to categorize spend into identifiable, sourceable categories. However, the process to categorize company spend data is not without its challenges. Many companies lack a central ERP system and must track down individual suppliers and have them run usage reports to gather data. Other companies have multiple ERP systems, and it can be cumbersome to consolidate reports from all the systems. In spite of centralized ERP systems, many companies are still faced with the dreaded “data dump,” and left with mountains of data to sift through. There are over six million vendors already connected on SAP Ariba (Ariba, 2022), the leader in B2B procurement
Access our whitepaper on transforming procurement problems by using data and gain insight into:
- The Current State of Category Sourcing
- Data Visibility Within Consolidation Efforts
- CoVest’s Machine Learning Spend Categorization Engine
- Cyclicality in Member Purchasing
- And More!
Whitepaper Download: Using Data to Optimize Your Procurement Process