We live in a digital age. When it comes to business, modern times and technologies have brought many new opportunities and challenges with them. Digitization of processes can be a tremendous boost to virtually every aspect of a present-day company, but only if you have the means and strategy to truly embrace it. Procurement is no exception.
Manual procurement
Digital technology has saturated almost every layer of the modern business but certain areas tend to resist the more advanced aspects of it; procurement is one. Sure, everybody uses email, but for many procurement departments much of the work is still done manually.
Consequently, for many, the following process will sound all too familiar:
- You are ready to release a new RFP, you start by contacting your vendors.
- You manually send out emails and probably make just as many phone calls.
- The bids start coming in, you print them out and store them in a cabinet in the office.
- Once you’ve collected all the bids, you find the lowest one.
- But your work is not done quite done. In order to protect your company’s interests, you need to compare that bid with earlier ones and analyze any changes.
- That means another trip to the archives and spending more time shuffling papers.
Fortunately, it does not have to be this way.
The present
While this level of automation may be a ways out for many organizations, the path forward is clear. Fairmarkit allows you to bridge the gap between the manual methods of handling tail spend and the digital future.
The first step is automation. Through automation teams can reduce the labor of current procurement processes, minimize repetitive tasks and save valuable time. Fairmarkit does this by automatically collecting and organizing the bids for a particular small to medium sized purchase. Consequently, this frees up your staff and allows them to focus on the details which really matter. Fairmarkit also drastically expands your supplier network. Specifically, it connects your procurement team to millions of verified vendors. This ensures you get the best prices and also saves you a lot of time that you would spend manually seeking out new suppliers.
While any change can seem daunting and going digital is no different, finding the right solution can ensure a seamless transition. It will allow you to increase productivity by saving time on repetitive tasks and drive value and savings for your team.
The future
If we manage to fully realize the potential of cutting-edge technology, the procurement team of tomorrow will be in a unique position to generate remarkable value. Procurement and supply will be more closely intertwined, providing instrumental insights and resources.
Taking advantage of technology solutions, procurement officers will instantly see the costs, supply levels, and risk factors associated with any transaction. The machines will gather and crunch the numbers, leaving your employees in the optimal position to find the right bid and manage vendor relationships. Much of the work will be automated and productivity will increase exponentially.
