Now that everyone's back at work, refuelled, refreshed, got a few weeks under their belts and ready to drive Procurement to new levels, let's look at some ProcureTech predictions for the rest of the year (in no particular order):
- The Rise of the Digital Scout: we're seeing an increasing number of organisations looking to appoint Digital Scouts to seek out and qualify innovation within the ever-expanding ProcureTech start-up world.…as opposed to just relying on the wider procurement team trawling ad hoc through existing resources such as LinkedIn, Dr. Elouise Epstein's Spider diagram, Lance Younger's ProcureTech100, James Meads' ProcurementSoftware.site, the Spend Matters | SolutionMap and others.
- ?A standard classification for ProcureTech solutions: there's a crying need for an industry-wide standard taxonomy to set out and categorise the functional capabilities offered by organisations and solutions across the flourishing ProcureTech landscape…to help Procurement teams (without Digital Scouts) try to navigate their way through the haystack of solutions, to find the needle that could be (part of) the answer to their unique challenges.
- Who Shares Wins: 2022 was the year that the industry finally recognised that no single P2P / S2P system can deliver all that Procurement needs, and "best of breed" is the way to go for the Procurement stack...and the P2P / S2P provider that embraces this (rather than feels threatened by it) and makes access to data easy for specialist start-up "apps" to plug-and-play, will come out top in 2023 and beyond.
- User Experience, User Experience, User Experience: Procurement teams and Business users of ProcureTech solutions now expect the same (buying) experience that they get at home. No excuses. Simple, beautiful, functional and quick…2023 will be the year when the industry finally realises that they won't accept anything less and we'll see a number of players rapidly looking to revamp their UX or risk being left behind.
- Beyond Insight & Analytics: the world is starting to evolve beyond the initial introductory ProcureTech solutions based simply on Insight & Analytics, or that only seek to streamline procurement processes…2023 will see more organisations implementing technology that has intelligence and automated decision making at its core (aka: Procurement-Intelligence?), to drive a new mantra of IAO (Insight-Action-Outcome).
- Alignment of Talent: nowhere is the "Diffusion of Innovation" theory more obvious than in today's world of Procurement. There'll always be 'Innovators' & 'Early Adopters', just like there'll be the 'Late Majority' & 'Laggards'…whilst the industry rightly talks about the need for an influx of Digital skills, it has to understand that unless these people land within the right environment, with the right inspirational leadership and with the right open-minded approach to technology, they'll move on. And quickly.
- Putting ESG into action: the past few years have focused on target-setting, data gathering, creating pretty dashboards and lots of talking and article writing. This has to change in 2023 for the sake of our planet and futures…2023 will be a year of action as far as ESG is concerned. We have to end 'green-washing' for ever and start actioning the insight that is staring us in the face. Decision making, based on ESG factors, will become as important as price and supply risk this year.
- JSON and the API-nauts!: not a remake of the 1963 classic (Jason and the Argonauts) but a semi-humorous plea to make 2023 a year focused on data cleanliness and formats. Data must be transferable, and ideally in real-time, via APIs…data will continue to be the gold dust that drives the transformation of the Procurement industry, and Excel is not a data management or storage tool. Every time you open an Excel spreadsheet, the digital world groans!
The season of 2023 predictions is now in full swing! So, like an episode of Bridgerton, waiting for the next Lady Whistledown publication of the "ton's" gossip, we hold our breath for the next list of predictions!!
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The world of Procurement is going through a massive period of change, the pace of which shows no sign of abating. Technology naturally is a huge part of this transformation, but if you listen to the organisations that are doing it well, they talk as much about Executive sponsorship, Mindset, Skillset, Change management, User buy-in, Education, Adoption, ROI, etc. as they do about the technology. Digital Transformation comes in many different forms and will be different for every organisation. For instance, if you're setting out to simply make your procurement processes more efficient (even automated to some extent) you'll be looking at different solutions and a different approach than if your transformation program is more advanced and geared to delivering an ROI or competitive advantage to the wider organisation.?
This is the power of today's Procurement - it has the ability to deliver a huge impact to people, the planet and the organisation.
No wonder,
Dr. Elouise Epstein ?????
continues to believe that "now is the most exciting time to be in Procurement!"
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If you're interested to know how the title of this newsletter came about, have a read of the first article ProcureTech: now's the time for ‘Toolboxes’ not ‘Toyboxes’ | LinkedIn
I look forward to continuing to shine a light on some of the key topics, issues and opportunities in the worlds of ProcureTech and Digital Procurement Transformation.
Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave a comment below.
Delivering fast, compliant, tail spend purchases with Candex
1 年This really resonated with me - having just moved out of practice it has never been clearer to me how companies who are investing to win think about their internal business ‘customers’ as much as they do about their external revenue generating ‘customers’. User’s low effort experience is the key to agility, pace, innovation, growth within compliance. In PTP and in Procurement this is clearer than ever. I’m delighted to be working in this space, and for a company focused on that mission in ProcureTech, because I genuinely believe we have so much business impact to deliver. Good stuff Alistair Cane
Husband. Father. Business Leader in Marketing Services.
1 年Some interesting views and projections for 2023 - thanks for posting AC.