How do you determine when change is needed and when status quo should be maintained?
Today’s post is our SafeSourcing archive.
While eProcurement technologies aren’t new, it is surprising how new of a concept they can be to some very large companies. As with any new technology and process, the perception of the change that must come as a result can be a bit skewed. Good solutions will dictate how much change is necessary by evaluating how well things are working today.
In today’s blog, we will be looking a few situations and where new eProcurement strategies can fit to leverage what you are currently doing today.
Improving what works – Companies don’t get big by having broken processes in every aspect of their business, so it stands to reason that there will be many good ways of procuring goods and services that they are using today. If, for example, there is a process in place for purchasing equipment for every regional office that works, what may be needed is a process that helps bring in some additional vendors, products and services to evaluate and then to provide the means by which the best value can be achieved for an award. As indicated below, there will be processes that need more help, so for the ones that don’t, focus on broadening the selection pool and getting the best value so that decision can be realized as soon as possible.
Managing what works – There are always spend categories where things are generally working, just in 100 different ways across all offices. When you have 50 different locations all using different vendors, tools and processes a good first move can be to let the locations continue business as usual but bring in a vendor to help manage what all 50 locations are doing, monitoring the activity and controlling the expenses and savings. A good eProcurememt solution will assist with getting the vendor pool to select from to handle the management realizing value immediately by assuring things run smootghly.
Consolidating what works – Sometimes organizations need more than someone to manage what they are currently doing; they need consolidation of those vendors in a way that leaves their processes in tact but begins to leverage the value that comes with more volume and smaller numbers of vendors to have to manage relationships with. The important thing in projects like these is to understand the current landscape so that in consolidating what works, “what works” doesn’t get lost in the process. This can be achieved with internal polls of the locations and external polls to the current vendors supporting the business today. Once this information is captured the plan for consolidation becomes much clearer.
For more information about how we can assist with sourcing your needs without changing what works for your company, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.
We look forward to your comments.
