Procurement channel optimisation is a holistic approach to maximising the performance of, and value from, companies’ external spend and digital…

Procurement channel optimisation is a holistic approach to maximising the performance of, and value from, companies’ external spend and digital assets.

The CPO has one of the hardest jobs in the company managing spend with suppliers. She or he has to work with people who think they are expert shoppers (many of us are Amazonaholics, or equivalent) following processes alongside their day job, and who need to be convinced to buy from suppliers who may not be their personal preference.

The impact of taking the wrong process steps, using suboptimal channels or ill-suited suppliers can be consequential. To illustrate, for a $10bn spend company with $1bn indirects whose procurement team saves 8% a year on average, a compliance of 60% compared to best in class of 95% compliance equates to almost $30m lost bottom line benefits each year.

Non-compliant shoppers are also often adding supplier risk, accounts payable complexity and costs. Often the reason for people’s failure to use the correct process and vendors is that contracts are not enabled and user experiences are poor. Procurement channel optimisation touches the core areas of procurement and external spend management and ensures that all assets are interconnected with no value leakage.

Contract, buying channel and content data are loaded correctly allowing buyers to use correct suppliers and negotiated prices, while also streamlining operations, driving compliance and generating spend insights. The procurement function can then realise the full value for their business. After all, underperformance can hide in plain sight unless all channels are fully utilised and optimised.

Read the full article in CPOstrategy – Issue 30

Written by Veronika Strausova
Procurement Transformation Lead, IBM Consulting, UK & Ireland

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