Empower users through automated procurement processes
When setting up a procurement organisation, we must determine how the business users will work with the procurement members. This is where the essential steps are when Procurement needs to be involved, where it makes sense and brings value. Looking at quite control-oriented organisations, Procurement or Finance departments are willing to include themselves in every process and thus be the gatekeepers of everything. While this may create some benefits in some of the transactions going through this process, it drives down the potential value that, in most cases, could be achieved.
Ask yourself these questions to get started empowering your users
As Procurement practitioners, we must consider where we make the most value and where we need to spend our time with the business to get the most value from what we do. Automating our processes will provide an excellent benefit for running our day-to-day business and increase productivity and efficiency while targeting the areas we want and need to work with. Some of the questions you can ask yourself are
- Do we need to be involved in the same way for all categories?
- Can we allow a different approval threshold for Category X than Category Y?
- Where are we required to be the gatekeepers?
- Are there country- or location-specific setups that require variations of our involvement?
With these questions in mind, we can start structuring our relationships with the business stakeholders differently than trying to address everything in the same way. Attempts to do this will create a growing bottleneck and end up with your Procurement users just focusing on the number of transactions they can get through a day and not spending the right amount of time on what could be done with relevant requests.
Don't attempt to control the world but focus on more value-creation
As we build up our ways of working, there could even be areas we need to deem out of our control - for now - and work in different ways to establish a more structured approach in the long run. As described above, what would be the most important: do you control everything or focus on the most essential areas in and for the business and get those under control regarding process and relationships with your stakeholders and suppliers?
Depending on your organisational maturity, the latter would be the best approach. In this way, you gain the most benefits and value tied in with the business you are operating in and according to the business strategy, and you will also benefit from empowering your organisation with more self-service or control while standing by to support them if needed.
Leverage procurement technology to build a more robust perception from business stakeholders
So, automating procurement processes is not only about technology but also about enabling relationships with stakeholders and driving more value through technology. This requires a flexible setup to support this journey and is simple enough to maintain and mature as you keep developing your organisation. Making the Procurement department a vital player in this area will help your organisation perceive you as more than just a gatekeeper; instead, start seeing you as a trusted function that allows them to work smarter and get more out of the tools you provide.
Do you have the tools or technology to support your journey of maturing and scaling your procurement operations?
Get in touch with us today through the chat and learn how you can use our platform to structure your flexible approval flows easily while focusing on the category areas which drive the most value for your organisation and your level of maturity.