What does it mean to be ‘free’ in purchasing terms? The business directory says it is characterized by choice and not by constraint or external control. It could also be something that costs you nothing. What about ‘worth’? Is your time your worth? If so, there are a few things to consider before you make any decisions.
Why time is a business’s most valuable asset
Most people don’t realize that time is their most valuable asset. Part of the reason is that you can’t see it or hold it in your hand. Yet time is not just that ticking of the clock on the wall. Time is a factor in all the meetings you need to get to in a day or all the deadlines that need to be met.
Michael Mankins, partner at Bain & Company who wrote the HBR (Harvard Business Review) article, “Your Scarcest Resource”said in an interview with Andy O’Connell from HBR IdeaCast: “…understanding where organizational time is currently deployed. When we work with large organizations, it’s amazing, but probably not that surprising that organizations don’t actually know how the collective time of their executives and teams is actually being spent.”
So much pressure is placed on the workplace and time is vitally important in our lives. It is crucial that business owners use their time effectively and teach their employees to do the same. It is also important for the CEO or business manager to sit down with all the departments and work out exactly how many hours are wasted on disruptions and efforts that are not key to the performance of the business.
One of the tasks that waste a lot of time in any business is the approval process. How many times was a project finished late or one of your deadlines missed because the executive in question that has to approve the purchase order was nowhere to be found? Or even worse you have to leave whatever you’re currently working on to run after or track down the executive to get the requisition approved.
Putting a system in place that helps the executive approve purchase orders quicker will give you and the executive the freedom you need to meet your deadlines.
Tweet this: “In my role, I’m the guy who catches it all. I don’t know how much longer I can last in this job.”
The time saved if the right processes are in place
Most managers have to sit down and go through inventory reports and emails to validate purchase orders to know where they come from, if they were processed, and if there are duplicates. This is a tedious system as anything can fall through the cracks. It wastes time and in the long run wastes your money.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, searching for a lost paper document will cost a company $122 on average. It is also estimated that 7.5% of all company documents are lost completely.
On average it takes 6 minutes to retrieve and file a document, and the total time taken to handle 100 documents equals 6 x 100 minutes = 10 hours per day
At an hourly rate of $14 including social security and benefits, total labor cost per year equals ($14 x 10) x (226 work days) = $31, 640.
There are also other factors to consider, for instance, the time it takes to copy documents, to send copied documents to clients and even the cost of fireproofing cabinets.
In this regard, going electronic has great advantages as documents are easily found by a search and they can easily be sent directly to a client’s email address. Also, when traveling documents can easily be accessed and worked on in a cloud-based system and there is instant communication between colleagues.
When you put a process like this in place the only thing a manager or executive has to worry about is approving purchase orders quickly as all the information they need is right there on the purchase order.
How mobility can help executives approve POs faster
In the fast-paced modern age we live in, there is hardly time in a day to get to every aspect of a project let alone drink a cup of coffee. Being in all the necessary places at once can be tiring and virtually impossible to achieve.
In Harry Levinson’s article, When Executives Burn Out, he quoted some executives that burnt out and one of them stated, “In my role, I’m the guy who catches it all. I don’t know how much longer I can last in this job.”
Not even top management can keep up with all the demands expected of them, especially with delays and unforeseen tasks that plague their days.
There are one of two things you can do to help you get things done on time, you can either go into your garage and start drawing up schematics for a time travel device or you can go electronic with your purchase order system. Going electronic means that you have the freedom of real-time reports on your mobile showing what is going on with any given purchase. You can also quickly approve purchases within minutes and see how much of your various budgets are left. All this while having that long awaited cup of jo.
The freedom of quick approvals helps managers and employees address their time-sensitive responsibilities with ease.
Switching to an electronic system might seem like a big step but most systems these days are easy to learn and very adaptable. The cost that is saved alone is a big opportunity for any company.
Putting the right process in place in your company will ensure deadlines are met, without burning out your staff.
If you find your procurement process difficult, simplify with a more user-friendly solution. The key is to find one that’s easy to use and all-inclusive (one that sees all direct and indirect spend) while integrating with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This ensures that all employees have access to the right information at the right time.
“Procurementexpress.com is easy to use. Quick to learn. Has great features and works perfectly for our organizational needs. Would recommend to anyone in business.” – Dale Wood, Citipointe Church
The role of the modern day Executive has changed over the last few years. Going electronic has made it easy to access business data from anywhere at any time and it provides more in-depth visibility into key business drivers that are clear across company strategy by means of analytics and insights.
What are the problems you encounter with your approval process? Procurementexpress.com could be your ultimate smart spend solution all in a convenient app. Stay on top of every aspect of your business. Try Procurementexpress.com for free today!
