What will the future of procurement look like?
Today’s uncertain economic landscape, new expectations, and predicted future 'mega trends', are all collectively redefining procurement’s role. In our exclusive webinar with Spend Matters' Jason Busch, we reveal three key topics shaping the future of procurement:
1. Economics meets procurement
Global volatility and imbalance of interest rates, currency values, GDP growth rates and commodity prices impact dramatically where organisations buy from. The challenge for procurement is using this, often overwhelming, data to look for year-on-year cost savings opportunities. In order to do this successfully procurement teams are expected to take a more predictive and preemptive stance compares to a historically more reactive position.
2. The brave new world for procurement
The cost/good/services supply chain
Managing costs, risk, and stock has always been part of procurement's role and, whilst this won't be going away anytime soon, there are now more factors to contend with in procurement's brave new world...
The information supply chain
Procurement needs to be able to manage all the components of information that makeup supplier compliance from within their supply chain. Procurement needs to understand what happens if suppliers are not adhering to a myriad of compliance points across law, process, policy, rules, guidelines and regulations, and how you make sure you can gather and manage that information.
The financial supply chain
Procurement functions need to be able to understand how capital flows through not just the economy, but how it flows through their own supply chains, and use this information to predict and take action. Ask yourself how close you are to understanding the financial solvency of your key strategic suppliers? Ultimately their problems are your problems if they start cutting corners. Consider new financial and technology solutions that are out there to help you support your suppliers financially.
3. Mega trends on the radar, including radical new infrastructure and technology
Digital disruption - supply chains are going digital and value chains are getting unbundled and re-bundled creating the ‘digital disruption’.
Big data - is much more important than you think, but it is both transformative in terms of what it can do for procurement and what people expect from the procurement function.
Social - is not just a type of interaction or a feature of a solution. In today’s day and age, it is a way of thinking, doing and being.
Financing trade and the supply chain – payables and receivables financing is anything, but a zero-sum game. It’s a huge opportunity for the purchasing department to take the lead.
Radical new technology/infrastructure – The world of procurement technology is going to change at ten times the rate in the coming decade than in the past 10 years.
To find out more contact us direct.
