Don’t search....find: strategic focus for digital procurement
Digital procurement platforms have the potential to significantly simplify day-to-day business for operational procurement. They achieve the greatest added value when they are brought into line with the processes and needs of operational procurement.
"If you digitalize a bad process, you end up with a bad digital process," Thorsten Dirks, CEO of Telefónica in Germany, once said at the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" business summit. In other words: the first step in any digitalization journey is process optimization. Applied to the requirements of digital procurement, this means that, in order for an organization to take advantage of the full added value offered by a digital procurement platform, strategic procurement has to do the groundwork, and think through and define the existing processes along with all of the opportunities available. In order to do so, strategic procurement analyzes, for example, existing ordering and approval processes, demand for specific goods, identifies new groups of goods, selects suppliers and consolidates them if necessary. It also scrutinizes supply chains and logistics and uses this information to develop a comprehensive long-term procurement strategy. It is then in a position to adapt the digital tools in procurement, for example a digital procurement platform, to suit exactly these new procurement processes and workflows.
Operational procurement notices the effect immediately: it finds what it is looking for faster and spends less time on administrative tasks. Operational procurement is assisted in its work by the many powerful functions offered by modern procurement platforms, which strategic procurement has previously adapted to suit the needs of the company: for example, a "guided buying" function flags up frequently purchased favorites and speeds up the product selection process, while a customized assortment setting ensures that only relevant items and suppliers are listed – everything else is hidden. Collaboration with the team and downstream approval processes are also optimized: digital procurement platforms usually offer the option of creating multiple users per account and assigning them individual roles, rights and budgets.
Finding is better than searching
Other functions that help users reach their goal faster include an AI-supported search that makes it easier to search for keywords and manufacturer item numbers, product pages that contain all of the relevant information, such as hazardous material sheets, descriptions or quantity details about a product, the option of performing an EAN check for price comparison, and powerful filter functions.
Strategic procurement with Wucato
Digital procurement platforms like Wucato are an important determining factor in procurement strategy, facilitating the day-to-day business of operational procurement – and that of employees in other departments, on the construction site or in production. A large number of different parameters ensure that items can be purchased quickly, efficiently and, most importantly, strategically: the platform is supported by AI, shows personalized product suggestions, and, for example, allows users to enter keywords or manufacturer item numbers, as well as supplier item and customer item numbers, in the shopping basket via the central search function. Digital procurement can take a lot of the work out of operational purchasing – provided you have the necessary tools at your disposal and know how to use them strategically.
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