Purchasing Transformation in The Post-Pandemic Era
A company purchasing process is a system for employees to buy products and services, encompassing the purchase from employee requisition to purchase order – including reporting on proof of product receipt and payment. How that’s been done has considerably changed and is now rapidly transforming the future for private, corporate and government organisations. We all want to have a peek at the inside scoop! Especially when it comes to our tax money.
British central government published data on pandemic-related PPE contracts worth $22 billion awarded from January through November 2020. Many more of these contracts remain secret, according to The New York Times. The UK’s PPE procurement scandal reminds us why we need ways to hold ministers to account – But who is held accountable for us? It’s both infuriating and confusing.
In the US, people are also asking: “What went wrong?”
In South Africa, by early 2020, most people would have thought that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s promised new dawn would have turned, but then along came the Covid-19 pandemic, which darkened the dawn in a number of ways. One of the ways the lights went off was on the shocking scale and level of depravity of corruption it unleashed. This was the same across the globe.
Purchasing behaviour and suppliers who are value drivers are most definitely being altered during the pandemic. According to WHO on the 3rd of May 2021, there have been 117,332,262 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 3,217,267 deaths. It has changed who we are and we need to get used to the “New normal”. We are humans. This has ultimately changed which suppliers we are able to invite into our lives. It also made us take a closer look at the masks people wear in stormy conditions. Including ourselves.
The past 18 months have shown that businesses that modernize critical processes are prepared for the unexpected. When Covid-19 ultimately hit in March 2020, everything changed. Employee home-based spending went into effect and supply chains were upended. For many business founders, the idea of digital revolution shifted from being optional in the nearby future, to being an immediate business transformation. They needed to get better, faster, and more efficient. The big plus in streamlining the purchasing process in your business is that it is simpler than you might think.
In The New York Times, Kevin Roose, a technology columnist and author, reckons:
“The trend – quietly building for years, but accelerating to warp speed since the pandemic – goes by the sleepy moniker “robotic process automation”
According to Roose, nearly 80% of corporate executives surveyed by Deloitte last year said they had implemented some form of R.P.A. Another 16% said they planned to do so within the next three years”. In his new book, “Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation,”, Roose lays out a hopeful, pragmatic vision of how humans can thrive in the machine age. Speed and quality control are equally crucial for competing in today’s company purchasing environment since poorly timed product deliveries or production mistakes can create missed opportunities that can never be reversed and even pile on unnecessary costs. There’s an even larger demand for spend visibility and keeping budgets in check across different departments within an organisation. Purchasing trends in the post-pandemic era most definitely include a large-scale increase in employee online ordering with suppliers, growing support for local and independent businesses, as well as increased demand for collection and local delivery. The shift toward virtual experiences is here to stay.
Purchasing processes need to be redefined and simplified.
With the rapidly advancing smartphone infrastructure and high-speed internet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have benefitted the most from increases in the use of video calling applications in workplaces, according to a recent study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The survey results suggest that the pandemic has accelerated the shift towards a more digital world and triggered changes in employee online ordering behaviour with suppliers that are likely to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic. Employees across the globe are seemingly moving towards instant purchasing capacity and comfort-based transactions – especially due to the stress caused by Covid-19. They are more in control of their budgets at home and at work. Remove the paper trail from that equation and you get “purchasing perfection”.
There’s no better way to create spend visibility than through automating the purchasing process in any business.
The Global Government Forum will be hosting a webinar on the 6th of July 2021 outlining the next steps for public procurement, where civil servants and external experts will discuss how leaders and staff in governments’ commercial, procurement and contract management operations can build on the year’s achievements. How can governments mainstream such a process while restoring the focus on value for money, quality and propriety? What can your business do to achieve positive results in the private sector?
Purchasing Solutions in The Post-Pandemic Era – What’s the Perfect Plan?
COVID-19 exposed the flaws in a procurement model focused solely on cost savings. But it also showed how much companies can actually gain with change. Consider change and taking back your purchasing power – post-pandemic. At ProcurementExpress.com, through modernizing critical purchasing processes, you are always assured that you have prepared for the unexpected. The problem is that procurement is stuck in a model focused on generating the most efficiency from the supply chain at the lowest cost. Why it matters, as the pandemic showed, a transactional relationship with limited suppliers can severely harm the business during unexpected disruptions.
The solution is to reposition procurement as a strategic partner through a data-centred, ecosystem-based approach that drives innovation.
Even more so today, our digital relationships build the foundations for efficient, ethical supply chains. We can eliminate fraud completely. It is time to remove the mask over your company’s spend visibility. Be the trend in shaping the new face of procurement. Simplify your purchasing processes with ProcurementExpress.com. Achieve long-term cost savings across your departments. Save time and effort in monitoring spending and ensure adequate control over the vendors you use.
The truth shall set you free.
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