How To Simplify Your Procurement Process
It is common to see procurement teams continuously juggling between emails, phone calls, and never-ending files and paperwork. Doing these, alongside assessing and managing suppliers, can be time-consuming. These gaps can overburden your procurement process and drag your return on investment. According to research, improving your procurement process can fuel your business growth by enhancing supplier relationships, eliminating collaboration bottlenecks, and reducing risks. Why not consider the tips below to simplify your procurement process to save money, time, and resources?
- Eliminate manual work
Manually tracking and managing your orders can be time-wasting. For instance, managing your orders via telephone or paper increases the chance of making errors and potentially losing orders. These mistakes can cost you time and money, significantly impacting your bottom line. Building resilience in your procurement process is best to ensure you can efficiently manage quantity, quality and price changes and have a clear timeframe while leaving a noticeable audit trail. Fortunately, there are several applications you can use to automate various parts of your procurement cycle, including contract management and sourcing and eliminating manual work.
- Use online vendors
Imagine having to drive to multiple locations and interact with salespeople before making a buying decision. This approach isn’t only stressful for your procurement team but costly as they will need to visit different locations. You cannot afford to go through all these processes, especially when you have orders to fulfil and clients to impress. Suppose you need a high-precision manufacturing machine or heavy-duty construction equipment. You can access various vendors or suppliers online without wasting time. That may be one of the many things that make buying online attractive to many businesses. You can also search for brand-new and used machines for sale from a few retailers online and procure them as early as possible.
- Educate your procurement team
It is one thing to provide all the best tools for your workforce and another if they can optimally use them. Educate your procurement team on accomplishing growth and leveraging deals to grow the business. Train your workforce on tasks automation, spending management, and the need for a standardised procurement routine. Aside from allocating roles, set targets in your RFP management procedures, limit the amounts, and avoid micromanaging with authorisations. Ensure you have proper procurement, visibility, and transparency in your sourcing strategy to assist your team in identifying the finest suppliers and building steady relations with them.
- Regularly audit your key suppliers
When was the last time you audited your key suppliers? If you haven’t done this in a long time, you may miss many opportunities to simplify your procurement process. Regularly auditing your major suppliers may reveal several issues, including unapproved product changes, compliance and quality issues and fiscal misrepresentation. Also, auditing your suppliers can enable you to pinpoint and analyse the risk of conducting business with certain suppliers. Why not audit your suppliers today to recognise their top practices and simplify your procurement processes?
These tips can help simplify your procurement process and positively impact your business operations.
