The responsibilities of a company’s procurement department have increased dramatically in recent years. Procurement-related duties cover an array of tasks, including purchasing supplies and materials, tracking and monitoring orders, managing an organization’s supply base, analyzing the market and delivery solutions, maintaining orders, , identifying potential cost savings, identifying areas of improvement, and more.
Ineffective and complicated procurement solutions can waste valuable time, resources, and money. But every organization is different, so how can businesses identify the right solution for their specific needs? Let’s take a look at some important features a digital procurement solution should have:
What does the right procurement solution look like?
1. Improved Spend Analysis
A lack of transparency into an organization’s daily, quarterly, and annual spending can lead to budget mismanagement, higher costs, missed opportunities, and poor decisions. A digital, automated procurement solution should be able to deliver accurate and real-time data based on your spend categories, accounting, locations, and suppliers so you have the data and quality to make confident business decisions and quickly realize your company objectives.
Data, automation, and process controls ensure that your organization’s transactions are correct. This insight helps the procurement department make smarter spending choices, allowing them to achieve long-term company goals.
2. Communication Feature That Allows for Simple Document Exchange
Establishing and working toward a more elevated relationship with suppliers is vital for the success of any business, especially amidst unexpected supply chain disruptions. Regular two-way communication with suppliers may reduce or prevent unwanted delays that often arise during the fulfillment process. Procurement systems take care of the tactical communication so that the relationship can become more strategic, so there’s less time spent on tactical discussions or disputes.
A digital procurement solution allows businesses to easily exchange structured and unstructured data electronically, which leads to more visibility and better partnerships. When a company’s procurement team communicates with suppliers and other departments more effectively, it can lead to higher productivity. Because a digital procurement solution can make employees self-service, the internal communication between employees and procurement can be strategic or based on a few exceptions.
3. Ability to Obtain High-Quality Data
Having quality data is crucial for any company’s consistent success. The wrong information can lead to poor buying decisions, inaccurate reporting, unnecessary expenses, and wasted resources. However, the right procurement solutions can automate accuracy and prevent issues by gathering the correct data.
The ideal solution should include the following features:
- The ability to connect and communicate with other financial systems and software.
- The ability to identify, track, and record exceptions, errors, mismatches, and more.
- Advanced AI proactively spots errors to reduce or eliminate them, identifying patterns or potential issues to prevent them in the future.
4. Encourages Employee Participation and User Adoption
A digital procurement solution like Vroozi is intuitive—it requires no training and can be adopted quickly by your employees.
This means you’re spending less time carrying out tasks such as processing requisitions and orders. How? Procurement sets up preferred and approved suppliers in the marketplace. When users adopt and buy from approved and preferred suppliers, orders can be automatically generated and sent to suppliers. By automating uncomplicated, repeatable tasks, your procurement department has more time to spend on complex duties, even streamlining collaboration between departments—a major win-win for everyone.
Access a one-stop shop for all your procurement needs.
Vroozi’s procure-to-pay solution improves business buying. You can review purchase requests and order approvals with just one click. Vroozi Purchase allows your employees to shop, oversee, and approve orders from mobile devices, all in one easy-to-use platform. Book a demo here!
