Procurement Challenges Checklist – Are You Moving Forward or Treading Water?
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This week I offer the most common challenges that are shared with me by procurement professionals.
Most folks that contact me are:
- Grappling with a system that is difficult to use and utilization is very low
- Seeking to eliminate offline tools that no longer support their growing operations (Excel, Word and PDFs)
- Looking for a way to eliminate manual steps hindering their current process
Without much effort I came up with 41 challenges.
One question I always ask is this: “How long have these challenges frustrated you and your team?’
I will share that answer at the end of this post.
I suspect you don’t want to read 41 challenges, so I narrowed my list to the top 18 since these are mentioned during most conversations.
- Automate bid process, contract management and reporting/tracking
- Automate and simplify communication with suppliers and stakeholders inside the tool
- Automated spend/savings/budget/contract tracking on dashboards
- Transparency and visibility – many stakeholders and business owners
- Drive adoption based on ease of use
- Scalability and efficiency
- Dashboard visibility of process bottlenecks
- Optimize award scenarios in real time
- Mange scoring inside tool
- Automate every manual process
- Spend management across all categories including tail spend
- Insightful spend analytics
- Automate supplier management – onboarding and updating
- Mobile approval of process steps
- Central repository and management tool for all contracts
- Integration between systems including legacy and enterprise systems
- Ability to handle large scale RFPs and quick quotes seamlessly
- Archive and retrieval of events/projects for future reference and use
Here are two questions I would like you to consider:
- If you look back 5 years would your list be the same as it is today?
- How many of these challenges are on your priority list for the coming year?
If challenges on this list are causing pain, take the first step.
If you don’t act, you can be pretty sure your list will look the same 5 years from now.
And now I suspect you know the answer to the question I posed at the beginning.
Most of these challenges have existed for as long as they can remember.
If you and your team are ready to move forward, reach out to me. In most cases, I can determine if I can help you in 30 minutes. At that point we can decide if further discussions are appropriate.
Whether they are or aren’t it will be an efficient use of 30 minutes.
Ask better questions, make changes and 2019 will be your best year ever.
Action Step: If you are uncertain where to start the process of change, a procurement professional like myself can provide guidance and expertise to help your organization achieve the results you want.
If you want to go explore this topic in greater detail, please contact me. I invite you to request 30-minute discovery conversation. In my experience the next step will be apparent at the end of the call. I never assume that what I have to offer will be right for everyone, so don’t expect a sales pitch. You can reach me at (973) 718-7071 x875. The call will be forwarded to my mobile phone if I am not in my office which is pretty likely.
If you would like to know more ways to reduce costs without changing the way you do business, simply give me a call or send me an email with your contact information and the best time to reach you.
You Won’t Drift to Success©
Commit to taking the next step.
Until Next Time, I Wish You Great Success in Your Business and in Your Life
Mike Jeffries
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