E-PROCUREMENT SOFTWARE: 5 WAYS IN WHICH E-PROCUREMENT SYSTEMS DELIVER EFFICIENCY AND PERFORMANCE

Procurement organizations strive to increase productivity and efficiency, and enable higher functional and cross-functional visibility of spend. E-procurement solutions help enterprises achieve their targets, and do much more and so are now the obvious choice for forward-thinking procurement leaders and the C-Suite. Here are five key benefits of using e-procurement software solutions:

1) Reduce Costs

Cost reduction is the most important advantage of e-procurement systems. Using e-procurement software, enterprises can directly reduce transaction costs by eliminating paperwork, optimizing the bidding process and reducing rework and errors. Cost savings can also be realized by using centralized e-procurement systems to take advantage of aggregated demand (enterprise-wide requirement instead of business unit requirement), establishing structured supplier relationships with built-in compliance tracking and continuous identification of savings opportunities.

2) Improve Spend Visibility

State-of-the-art e-procurement systems present enterprise-wide spend information in an organized manner on one single platform. The advantages of e-procurement systems also flow into the domain of contract compliance and savings management. Firms with a imprecise view of their total spend profile are highly likely to be missing out on savings and opportunities to restructure their supplier portfolio. E-procurement software enables centralized tracking of transactions and in-depth reporting of purchase requests, orders processed and payments.

3) Boost Productivity

E-procurement systems boost efficiency and productivity. Using these systems, buyers can follow a consumer-like shopping experience and purchase items from pre-approved catalogs according to the organizations business rules, and thus without the involvement of the procurement team. With the bulk of standard transactions off their to-do list, the procurement staff can concentrate on improved strategic sourcing and enhanced supplier relationships.

4) Enhance Controls

E-procurement systems enable data capture and subsequent data analysis to reveal purchasing patterns. In addition, processes are driven through, pre-defined workflows and standardized approvals with minimal demands for manual intervention. Using e-procurement systems, every transaction is subjected to a correct level of authorization reducing non-compliant or maverick spend.

5) Promote Innovation

Large companies often wish to focus on brand innovation and thus they will look to outsource much of the purchasing process to trustworthy suppliers. A key factor in such engagements is transparency in the supplier relationship. Innovations will fail to succeed without collaboration with suppliers who are capable of delivering to the needs of an enterprise. E-procurement platforms play a critical role in such engagements as these allow seamless flow of information and supplier integration.

While stand-alone e-procurement systems facilitate optimization of individual processes across the procurement cycle, a unified e-procurement solution like GEP SMART^TM leverages complex artificial intelligence and automation to enable a total transformation of the procurement function to promote higher efficiencies and productivity.