6 Technology Trends Transforming the Procurement Process
In today’s technology-evolving world, many ultra-modern solutions are hitting the market every day. Enterprises are continually investing in advanced technologies to automate their processes to stay in tandem with the current market trends, and procurement is no exception. Over the years, the procurement department has been considered a back-office function. Fortunately, with automation, businesses can now focus on accessibility, efficiency, and sustainability of the purchasing process.
This article discusses a few latest technology advancements that can further streamline the procurement process.
Cloud Ready with SaaS
Many businesses have been adopting cloud-based SaaS procurement solutions that allow them to access advanced procurement management tools without paying higher costs. The pay-as-you-use subscription model is helping procurement teams to lower upfront costs, such as purchasing, implementation, and maintenance fees while providing the flexibility they need to store and manage data. Procurement teams can scale up or down the bandwidth and storage space and thereby reducing unwanted expenses.
Data Analytics
Business infrastructure comprises tons of procurement data that needs to be analyzed properly to understand the issues with the current procurement processes. Collecting, categorizing, validating, and processing the sky-rocketing amounts of data with manual functions is very difficult. However, advanced procurement solutions enable procurement teams to extract key insights from the data and help them to embed analytics into their decision-making. Businesses can demonstrate more value and transform their work with data-driven insights.
Mobility
Mobiles have become an integral part of everyone’s life. This is the reason why most businesses are focusing on mobile-first and mobile-friendly environments to provide their clients the flexibility they need to use the services on the move. The procurement department also needs to embrace the rapidly accelerating mobile-first trend to allow users to manage procurement functions from anywhere, anytime.
Digitization
Digitization has become a trend for various reasons, such as paperless processes, reduced costs, improved efficiency, and more. Every enterprise is seeking ways to adopt digitization in their business operations to enhance their productivity. Procurement is an area where the digital approach to operation poses immediate advantages. The organizations that have already adopted the digital path to manage procurement functions are relieving their procurement teams from mundane tasks and letting them focus on value-driven activities. By embracing this approach, you can eliminate inefficient and time-intensive aspects and make the procurement process more efficient.
Artificial Intelligence
AI will be the next big thing globally, and it has the capability to transform every industry. It is a computer-controlled system that learns from human actions and accordingly automates the workflow. With intelligent computer algorithms, AI-based procurement solutions help procurement teams solve complex problems more effectively and efficiently. Artificial intelligence technology can be embedded into various processes such as spend analysis, supplier sourcing, contract management, and more.
Automation
Automation is no longer a choice; rather, it has become mandatory for every organization to manage the business effectively. As conventional brick-and-motor offices are on the edge of extinction, it has become imperative for companies of all sizes to adopt digitization to thrive in the new normal. Fortunately, there are hundreds of procurement solutions that provide procurement teams with the advanced tools to automate the entire procure-to-pay process to increase profitability. From requisition creation to approval, supplier sourcing, product delivery, invoice matching, and payment, procurement solutions such as SutiProcure transform the way businesses manage their procurement processes.
