MANUAL PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT PUTS YOUR PROCESS AT STAKE:

How often do you find an invoice, then get an email saying it wasn’t approved by someone in finance? How often is an order lost, just because a critical document was misplaced or mishandled? If your answer is “more often than it should be”, your traditional, manual?procurement strategy?probably needs a complete overhaul.

#. Telltale signs of manual procurement failing miserably

1. There is no transparency

Spreadsheets were a great place to start with organizing data, but they start to break down when you need significantly more out of them. The first place you may struggle with is data access. Reaching for information and tracking it through multiple spreadsheets can be difficult.

When the number of data increases, the speed at which you can retrieve information decreases. You also must manage security concerns and not share information with too many people. Small errors and omissions can lead to inaccurate information that can cost you deals, customers, and vendor relationships.

Put these problems together, and investing in?automated procurement software?won’t seem like a luxury anymore! Because with procurement software you will be able to improve your spending under management. And, if you’re wondering how?here’s a free guide on spend under management?to get you started.

2. Consistent policy compliance is practically a pipe dream

Every organization has certain guidelines, especially within departments like procurement, which need to spend the most resources. When these guidelines aren’t followed, things go haywire.

Inconsistency is common. While one employee may follow the company’s policies on expenditure and?vendor relationships, 3 or 30 others may have their own way of doing things. Focusing on individual tasks like getting a particular PO executed, they lose sight of the big picture of the efficiency and productivity of the department and financial goals.

3. There is no clarity

Manual?procurement management?is rather like blindfolded workers on an assembly line. Each team member, lacking transparency into a process, may make a small error or take a poor decision. The results are cumulative, and the bottom line of the organization bears the brunt of errors caused due to the lack of clarity.

Real-time data visibility, role-based permissions, and omnichannel data accessibility all make automated procurement the way to go.

4. Unsatisfied customers, vendors, and procurement teams

With a wobbly, bloated, and unnecessarily complicated procurement strategy running things through overworked and short-sighted procurement teams, the results are ugly.

Deadlines are missed, the bottom line takes a hit, invoices are routinely lost or sent to the wrong team member. If this description even remotely sounds familiar, it’s time to uproot archaic manual strategies and embrace an?automation-powered procurement solution.

#. What is Procurement Automation?

Procurement automation is about automating your procurement processes to maximize efficiency and reduce the time taken. It speeds up the procurement process by freeing employees from repetitive and time-intensive tasks. Procurement automation software lets you focus on business-critical activities like decision-making and strategizing. It transforms the procure-to-pay process while keeping the cost down. Learn more about how to get the best out of procurement automation in this?live webinar.

Why should you automate your procurement process?

Before we jump on to the six procurement processes to automate, here are some of the benefits of procurement automation.

1. Increases productivity
2. Eliminates manual errors
3. Provides visibility into your spend
4. Acts as a central repository
5. Improves collaboration between internal and external teams
6. Removes approval bottlenecks