Articles by "Procurement Technology"
Showing posts with label Procurement Technology. Show all posts

on Monday, July 11, 2022 0
Organizations that have utilized traditional procure-to-pay (P2P) solutions are experiencing the need to monitor spend efficiency more closely. The same holds true for businesses that have deployed a combination of disparate systems, alongside enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Leaders are prompted to seek more robust solutions—while lowering costs—and find that a comprehensive source-to-pay (S2P) platform is the answer. 

sourcing cycle with multiple considerations
Automate Source-to-Pay Workflow

Increase Workflow Automation
When S2P solutions are implemented, organizations can increase the automation of their workflow and reduce critical cycle times. The ease of use, simple implementation, and visibility across robust procurement workflows are unmatched with end-to-end platforms. Meanwhile, organizations that rely on general ERP applications, may require supplemental tools to manage their complete sourcing to payables process.

Seamless Integration
The best fit S2P will offer a plug and play install and seamlessly integrate with all ERPs. This eliminates the need to migrate data from existing tools or worry about costly downtime. When multiple solutions or “extra” modules must be deployed to extend to end-to-end coverage, customers encounter added cost. This is more painful when teams refuse to adopt the individual ERP or niche solution because it does not meet their needs or otherwise lacks flexibility. 

Tech-Enabled Solutions
When S2P solutions are enabled with the latest technology, features like artificial intelligence support advanced capabilities through process automation and document processing. This is demonstrated in Intelligent AP Automation by eliminating inefficiencies associated with manual processing and boosting compliance. The capabilities of complex document recognition, sorting and classification accessible through a simple, customizable user interface are transformative to the way purchasing is managed. 

Image displays bar chart to demonstrate growth
Monitor spending while reducing costs with your S2P

Intelligent Assistants and other proactive technology are further differentiators seen in S2P platforms. These features add an expanded element of convenience by enabling users to access documents and workflow details, through conversational or text prompts while on the go and outside of the platform interface, using recognized communication tools. 

End-to-End Processing
S2P solutions are designed with the full sourcing process in mind, extending capabilities and workflow visibility.  




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on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 0


AI artificial intelligence mapping brain as digital circuit network
If you search on the internet, it is no surprise that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to significantly change the workplace is a consistent trend with companies that want to grow. While it is not a new concept, the opportunity for application and saturation in financial services is accelerating.

AI is no longer reserved for big tech and entertainment-focused companies. Albeit these organizations tend to lead the way with integrating AI in their most recent product launches.

The relatively inexpensive cost to create and implement AI into software applications has broadened the scope of use, specifically when it comes to everyday business processes. The first question to ask when considering the adoption of AI, or any technology for your company, is how will it help grow the business, reduce costs, and improve cashflow?

One use case explored involves AI Automation within a finance organization. The solution was deployed to automate invoice processing, a monotonous task that was time-consuming for employees who manually entered large amounts of data and reconciled against multiple records. The use of AI invoice automation software has significantly reduced processing inefficiency, data entry errors and processing time.

In another use scenario, a company was able to reduce their data extraction manual efforts by two full days. On average, reading and keying data from an invoice takes an employee approximately three (3) minutes per invoice. Automating that process for close to 500 invoices monthly, results in 25+ hours of time savings. This reduction is attributed to the ability of AI to read, extract, and transpose:

  • Supplier Names
  • Payment Terms
  • Bill Dates
  • Invoice Numbers
  • Line-Item SKUs and Descriptions
  • Quantities
  • Prices and Taxes
As a bonus, the AI results in fewer keying errors than the customer’s existing manual processes.

AI invoice automation “learns” and evolves on an ongoing basis. While processing big data, it contextualizes information and understands different languages. Most importantly, employees previously responsible for related tasks are free to focus on more strategic contributions to the organization.

It is difficult to envision any market that would not benefit from AI invoice automation technology. If your organization procures products or services, paying invoices quickly should be a top priority. As a finance team, using AI invoice AP (Accounts Payable) processing software should be simple and easy.

Are you a CFO or business leader interested in reducing expenses and improving your procurement process? Learn more about AI-driven invoice automation in the AI, Automation and Invoicing Revolution webinar with Julien Nadaud, Senior Vice President of Innovation at Corcentric.



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on Tuesday, August 31, 2021 0

 

Credit: Spirit Airlines
Spirit Airlines recently made public that they were conned out of almost $1 million. A material operations manager and a senior buyer conspired to send through overpriced items from a specific vendor and received kickbacks from the vendor for doing so.

While not an everyday occurrence for companies, it is common enough that if a company hasn't seen it happen, they either will in the future or lack the processes to know that it could be happening. 

I've seen this quite a few times using different methods and doesn't have to require employees to participate for the con to be effective. Usually, the reason it occurs and isn't immediately caught comes down to 2 root causes:

  1. Poor separation of duties. One of the most common issues is when the person who is requesting new supplier creation is the same as the person who approves those suppliers' invoices/POs. Not having a different staff member verify the supplier is legitimate as well as other people verifying dollar amounts are in the expected range (such as a Cost Center Manager looking at a report of all line items) are common holes that can be attacked.
  2. Insufficient processes for validating invoices and payment instructions. There should only be specific people who can update a company's Remit To address or payment instructions, and those people must have defined verification processes for each.
We've seen this happen not just when companies come to us asking to improve their processes, but it can even become apparent during an otherwise normal Corcentric technology implementation. Unlike many other companies, we review relevant processes during the implementation and provide recommendations on where to make improvements to achieve their Target Business Outcomes. Even in just the past 12 months, I've worked with clients during these implementations who do not vet new suppliers, do not have defined processes for updating bank account information, and do not have strong reporting for managers to review purchases.

These holes may not be obvious unless you are looking for them, but once found can be plugged. In the examples above, we come in with recommendations on how to fix it and then can work with the client to ensure they are properly deployed in order to maximize the reduction in fraud potential.

While companies like to think of staff as family, all it takes is one person acting maliciously for millions of dollars to be removed, and without the proper controls, the company may not realize it for years, and could never discover the truth.


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on Monday, June 07, 2021 0


 In the past, the sole function of an RFP was to engage with the best supplier with the best pricing.  

Today, it isn’t just about functionality and price; the pandemic raised awareness around financial stability and diversity qualifications that should be included when it comes to the down selection process.

Is your company classified as any of the following?

  • Small Business
  • Small Disadvantage Business (SDB)
  • Women Owned Small Business (WOSB)
  • Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB)
  • Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)
  • Hub Zone Small Business (Hub Zone)

    Then there are now additional “legal” questions being presented in RFP’s

  • Is your company involved currently in litigation with any company or entity?
  • Does your company have any debarment by governments or any regulatory bodies?
  • Is your company a subsidiary of another company? If yes, what company?

 Beyond the signed NDA or MNDA prior to the RFP release, there now the trend of questions/requirements in the RFP re:

    3rd Party vendors

Proof that there is an NDA between the Potential Supplier and the 3rd party vendor which includes a clause to cover confidentiality regarding work performed for any client of the Potential Suppler. 

  • Proof of any required licenses
  • Proof of insurances

 The RFP should clearly state if 3rd party vendors are allowed or not allowed to be part of the installation and or support of the product or service.  The RFP should be clear if 3rd party vendors are acceptable that they report to, are the responsibility of and paid by the contracted Supplier… there should never be invoices received directly from the 3rd party vendor.

    RFP “Company Questions” around internal employee volunteerism:

  • Does your company promote volunteering? 
  • Does your company allow employees paid time to volunteer?  If yes, how much time each year?
  • Does your company support any non-profits and if yes, which ones?

    Then there are the political related RFP questions:

  • Does your company support any political party? 
  • How does your company provide support?
  • Does your company publicly advertise your support?

     And don’t forget the company stability questions:

  • What us your company’s employee turnover rate? 
  • What has been the employee growth or decline as it relates to revenue?
  • How many acquisitions has your company been part of in the past 5 years?
  • Is your company private or publicly traded? (If public read the stock news/releases.)
  • What is your D&B (Dun and Bradstreet) number? (check it)

    Miscellaneous items to investigate about the Potential Supplier:

  • YouTube content
  • Facebook Page
  • LinkedIn Company page
  • LinkedIn page for representative, and upper management (is there a lot of company hopping by the folks that will be connected to your account?)

Depending on the type of service, you might also want to check their on-line reviews

 I had a client years ago who didn’t do this type of due diligence, signed the engagement with the supplier to only discover during roll-out their insurance policies had lapsed AND all the vendor employees on site were actually subcontractors/3rd party providers.

 When writing an RFP, the above information which has nothing to do with the service or product being sourced is of value.  No stakeholder wants to be called to the rug for a preventable situation.

If you have questions or are interested in having an RFP Sourced please contact me, twankoff@corcentric.com.

 

 

 

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on Thursday, May 20, 2021 0




We are in the world of “Specialized” ,“We are the best...” type Suppliers – We have all encountered companies of this type.  A company that makes it clear: Take our contract terms as written we do not make contract changes.

 I recently negotiated a contract for a client where the Supplier "Specialized" in a software management product. The Supplier provided a quote in the body of an email, the SLA’s and and contract terms are publicly displayed on their website and the actual “contract” is just an order form – how many licenses do you need at what level? – The price is X.

• The Supplier didn’t care that the company I was representing is a Fortune 1000 in revenue in the United States.
• The Supplier didn’t care that the client wanted to start with 25 to see how it goes and then increase the order
• The Suppler didn’t care that my client wanted a 3-year term agreement – the supplier only issues a 1-year term agreement and renewals after that.

How can anyone negotiate under these circumstances????

• Research the Actual Costs – it is truly rare to only have one supplier selling a specific type of widget.

• Know the Lingo – when speaking with the Supplier representatives during the decision of purchase - learn and speak the lingo.

• Discover/Discuss the mutual gains – Our logo represents X amount of potential future clients

• Quote Alternative Suppliers – politely discuss that you could purchase the widget from X for % less….

• Identify Supplier Freebees - Look for items that cost the vendor nothing to provide but are a value add to your company.

What I was able to negotiate:

• Additional training hours beyond the 10 for administrators within the first 30 days became 20 hours over 3 months.

• Two extra licenses for the same cost as the 25 we began with

• Reduce the written notice to not renew from 60 days down to 30 days.

• Test drive a different product they are selling for two users for 6 months. 

We will always be in a business world with "Take it or leave it" type companies...and in most cases we take it because time and effort had already been extended to make the decision of who to engage with; starting over or requesting a contract from the second choice on the list will not truly fill the need.

What have you been able to negotiate in a take it or leave it situation? 
I'd like to hear/read your thoughts... twankoff@corcentric.com

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on Thursday, April 29, 2021 0








Did you know under a microscope a single grain of salt appears in a cubed non-pattern?
Each grain of salt is approximately 0.03mm and visually is the color of brown sand. 

A connectivity network viewed from a high level appears very different than looking at it from a granular point of view; when trying to obtain what the value of each connection is and the type and amount of traffic it can support.  There is money to be saved, time elimination to be obtained, and technology options for service and speed to be explored through a microscopic approach = Rationalization and Optimization.

What is Rationalization?
Rationalization is to reduce the total number of suppliers which will reduce costs and presumably introduce efficiency.

What is Optimization?
Optimization is to focus and refine the supplier base which includes:
Streamline Services - To analyze the services and suppliers your company uses to determine the merits of adding, retaining, or deleting services each telecom vendor provides.

What can be documented or created? 
(and these are just a few grains that can be shook from the shaker)
  • Contract term status report – expired and/or due to expire.
  • Vendor Services not under a current contract· Services not in sync with current contract terms
  • Contractual Rate Errors
What are the focus areas?
That depends, is there is currently a service provider is not meeting contracted obligations or providing sub-par service responses? If the current situation is good, these are some of subject areas to focus on:
  • Audio/Video Conferencing Services
  • Broadband Services
  • Cable/Internet Services
  • Data Network Services (LAN/WAN)
  • Fiber Services
  • Landline Services
  • Leased Telecom Equipment
  • Legacy Voice Services
  • Maintenance Services
  • Managed Services
  • Music on hold services
  • Security and Alarm ring down lines
  • SIP Trunks
  • Toll Free Services
  • TV services
  • Voice Traffic
  • VOIP Services
  • Wireless Services
What are the benefits to engaging a company that specializes in Rationalization & Optimization?
Telecom vendors have a myriad of jargon for the same services and pricing can be all over the map when comparing and vendor to vendor services and costs. In addition, contractual language, SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) and real-time responses to your concerns will be vastly different from supplier to supplier for the exact same connectivity.

This type of audit; down to the granular level produces cost saving – consolidation, elimination of no longer used/needed services, and creates a way for a clean dialog to begin which can be the pathway for technology service advancements and better yet - COST SAVINGS!

If you have questions on this topic please email twankoff@corcentric.com.
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on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 0

Many procurement professionals understand the complexities of supplier relationships, best in class sourcing and negotiation strategies. These fundamentals make the procurement world go round. Technology however has not always been top of mind and has been adopted spotty at best. Many organizations could benefit from adoption of procurement technology, bringing attention to blind spots and further optimizing processes.

I have recently been involved in a large scale implementation of a P2P tool. I want to share some perspectives of what has gone well and some challenges we have dealt with along the way. My hope is that it will bring to light the value technology brings to the procurement world. Change is never easy but is the key to staying competitive and cutting edge. Good technology cannot be supported without the proper processes, change management and people. All of these are critical components to the process and help uncover pain points that exist in an organization to drive operational efficiency.

First off when I say P2P tool, I am referencing a few capabilities. First is cataloging and content creation. This allows end users to requisition/purchase negotiated items through preferred suppliers. Second is sourcing. Many times, RF(x) events are run through email and excel sheets. This is a largely inefficient process and will be considered a stone age tactic at some point in the future. An Esourcing tool can help streamline the bid process, keep you organized and able to focus on more strategic elements of the event instead of the tactical components. Third is payments. Technology can help enable the end to end process flow and cut down on payment processing time. It is important to note that you need the right technology to create a seamless end to end procure to pay process.

Many times, a procurement team is involved with national and preferred agreements with little sight into other tail spend in the organization. Technology helps to uncover those blind spots in spend and creates more visibility across the board. Opportunities are identified through this process in how to better manage the current supply base, consolidate suppliers, process payments more seamlessly and ensure contracted prices are honored. What I have seen through this process is a typical category management role gets elevated and becomes more strategic. This is a win because the more strategic we are able to get, the more potential opportunities for future growth.

Many challenges faced with technology implementation include resistance to change and user adoption. A P2P technology is no different. There is constant education that needs to take place to drive new behaviors in an organization. Driving compliance is great for operational efficiency and the bottom line, however many times compliance is not met with the best reception.

All in all, technology can be a very powerful tool in the arsenal for procurement professionals. It allows for optimization and better compliance while making the lives of everyone it touches more seamless. Additionally, it can help elevate the roles of those who employ it, making their day to day less tactical and more strategic.
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on Wednesday, December 23, 2020 0


 We find ourselves today at a crossroads in how Procurement operates. The battle between rigid, manual, paper-based procurement processes and the “new-age” of procurement is coming to an end. The “new-age” of procurement can be simply defined as: Automation, from sourcing to payment.  COVID is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It is the nail in the coffin for labor intensive, legacy procurement processes.

It’s quite easy to come to this conclusion when you look at the direction of our society. We want instant gratification. We complain when our new coffee maker takes more than 24 hours to land on our front doorstep from 2,000 miles across the country. Technology is replacing retail and changing service delivery at a rapid clip. The future of business and procurement is following shortly behind.

Think just 10 years back. It’s 2010 and you have a list of to-do’s before the upcoming work week. Your list includes a trip to the bank to cash a check. A trip to the vehicle repair shop for an estimate. A trip to the doctor for your annual check-up. A trip to the grocery store to stock up for the week. A trip to Home Depot to pick up cleaning supplies. A trip to Office Depot store to pick out school supplies for your children. A busy day! Then you plan to cap it off with a trip to the Movie theater to see a new film.

Today you could complete that entire list of tasks simultaneously while sitting in your pajamas, sipping coffee so long as your thumbs work to operate your iPhone. Take a picture of your check for mobile deposit. Snap some pictures of the dent on your vehicle and submit through the Geico mobile application. Press “order now” on your Whole Foods grocery order and Amazon shopping cart with all the cleaning and school supplies. Enjoy your virtual doctors visit. Then fire up Netflix to watch the new movie after an exhausting day. COVID has certainly added fuel to the dissipation of retail stores and rise of services able to be completed remotely. Tech is now replacing things we never though it could. Just look at education and learning. We’ve moved almost exclusively to eLearning since the rise of COVID.

So how is this indicative of change in the world of Procurement? You must look within the inner workings of fortune 1,000 companies today. Processes that you think would-be long-gone 15+ years ago are still happening. Folks are still faxing, mailing and calling-in orders. Procurement managers are filing away contracts to hopefully pull out on the right day prior to auto-renewal or missing a commitment. Suppliers are still processing orders and generating paper-based invoices. Accounts payable is still manually coding and reconciling invoices for payment. This is partly due to the fact that this is what some Procurement people and suppliers know and are comfortable with. It’s also in part because procurement technology which could automate all these processes has always been thought of as too expensive or complex to implement.

Buyers and suppliers entering the workforce today were born with a tablet in their hands. They had their first smart phone at age 10. Procurement software can now be easily integrated with existing ERP solutions making it easier to implement and less expensive. You don’t need to spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours to implement and benefit from procurement software.

The future state of procurement is upon us. Corporations need to invest in technology and the right level of services to make sure the technology is enabling the right process. Automation of Procurement is going to happen, so why not hop aboard now?

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on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 0




The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how resilient and effective procurement organisations can be. But how can we ensure that we are spending correctly? 

What are the opportunities available to improve efficiencies, deliver with greater speed, build an even more resilient supply chain and be adaptive to other changes that could come our way - such as another wave of the pandemic or Brexit??

When we look back the way this pandemic changed the way we procure and interact with our suppliers, there is an opportunity to understand how spend analytics could provide better visibility into the spend through transparency, provide decision points, monitor and improve spend, identify demand-supply gaps and help us respond to these challenges in a quicker and a more effective manner.

We all saw how NHS scrambled its forces together to assemble the essential PPE kits required for its hard working staff and how the decentralized nature of this mammoth organisation did not really help with the leverage it could have otherwise had. 

We all faced empty shelves when we went to the local supermarket to stock up on flour, bread and even toilet paper!

We all realised how little equipped our retails chains were to respond to the huge demand in items such as hand sanitisers.

So how then do companies ensure they get the balance right (if and when such a situation arises in the future) between recognising opportunities to generate savings, meeting the demand-supply gaps that arise and above all, keep focus on a sustainable supply chain?

Its important that we stop and ask ourselves:

1. Do we have visibility into our spend? Where, how much and what are we spending on?

2. Do we have the skill set and more importantly tools to perform analytics that can show us where the opportunities are?

3. How quickly can we perform such analysis to not only create plans in wake of such situations but also deliver on low hanging fruits?

4. How do we identify savings levers specific to each category/sub-category and implement these quickly and effectively?

5. What metrics can we track beyond spend, savings and cost?

6. How do we work collaboratively with suppliers whilst supporting them with data that is available and visible to us?

Spend Analytics is key to identifying answers to all these questions. It not only helps you build a road map on category sourcing but also helps identify savings, tail spend, procurement KPIs, behaviours and provides visibility as well as action points to track spend.

Understanding and analysing spend has helped organisations succeed by identifying levers that help unlock savings and value. What further helps identify and implement strategies or tactics to manage spend during a crisis such as the pandemic is an effective digital platform or tool that is capable of raising alerts without the need for a resource intensive process. The fact that most of us have had to work remotely and will probably continue doing so while collaborating with colleagues and suppliers across the world only builds a stronger case for a digital strategy. If you have not considered a digital platform with spend analytics as a part of it, now is the time to do so.

Applying spend analytics can help a procurement organisation make better and informed decisions by providing a better control over your spend and can help navigate crisis situations more quickly and effectively. Spend analysis can enable competitive advantage, enable better supplier relationships, you may even want to see it as the most exclusive secret weapon at your disposal.

Diego summarizes the importance of spend analytics in his podcast here.


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on Tuesday, September 01, 2020 0


The roles and functions of Procurement have evolved over the decades, and it is hard to overstate the value of analytics has played in this evolution. We have seen a shift from spreadsheet-driven, manual spend analysis to automated, predictive and prescriptive data analytics. While it may seem like analytics can grant Procurement professionals a magical crystal ball, be wary of relying too heavily on data analytics, especially when those data sources are less than reliable. Let’s take a look at the benefits and pitfalls of analytics within the Procurement function.

AI-driven and automated tools have proven crucial for almost everyone within Procurement. From Category Managers applying predictive analytics to the AP team measuring cycle times to assisting strategic sourcing lock in better payment terms and discounts, when used properly analytics can build trust and confidence within your Procurement organization. But, let’s consider the foundation for predictive and prescriptive analytic models: data sets from multiple sources. How accurate is the data you are plugging into your cloud-enabled or platform-driven analytics tool? How do you verify the validity and authenticity of the data sets? It is no surprise that bad data can lead to bad decision making. The purpose of these analytical models is to guide our decision making, and if the data we are using isn’t accurate or outdated, the results certainly will vary. Be sure you are vetting and validating your data before you begin to make decisions regarding large contracts or strategic initiatives. This may mean frequent audits or higher accountability on those inputting your data. Save yourself the frustration and hassle associated with “bad data.”

Moreover, if your team is inundated with data or analytic models, you potentially may be causing more harm than good. The same way consumers may feel overwhelmed in a super-store, so might the Category Manager with a variety of dashboard views and filters. Establish three or four key metrics you wish to report out on and use these small sets to guide thinking or decision making before opening to flood gates. If cycle time is important to your organization, start by measuring your average contract lifecycle or average sourcing event duration to help plan any corrective action. But, spending time digging through different filters and dashboard views isn’t productive and will likely cause resistance from those providing the reporting. Also, understand how different metrics may overlap or work with one another. For example, forecasting and benchmarking are separate metrics you can report on, both help build your market intelligence and equip your team with the tools to be trusted consultative advisors for stakeholders.

While predictive analytics can provide a Procurement team with valuable insights, be careful not to rely too heavily on these insights and mistake predictive for prescriptive models. If you trust your data, then your analytics and reporting capabilities influence strategic decisions, but if you are unsure of the validity of your data sets then it is time to revisit where and how you capture your data – manual inputs, ERP systems, source-to-pay platforms, etc. Once you are confident you are capturing and vetting all data sets, start small with key metrics and reports before applying any overly corrective actions. These strategic steps can help make the most out of your analytics and reports while avoiding any over-reliance on easy-to-use reporting features.

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on Friday, August 28, 2020 0

Each week, we will go into details on how to address project and change management now to create a resilient and robust organization for tomorrow.

If you missed last week’s blog on Supply Chain Reconfiguration, you can check it out here.

This week, we will look at the 4th of 6 ways a company can use downtime to impact the greater good of the organization and position themselves to be a better, stronger company when the work picks back up.

Introduce Automation

What are some of the key ways automation can help modernize a company’s way of doing business?

  • Increase productivity and client satisfaction
  • Improve management accuracy and lower turnover times
  • Drastically lower risks
  • Facilitate marketing of high-performing business to larger clients
  • Decrease environmental footprint and eco-compliance
  • Reduce human error and increase efficiencies
  • Gain competitive edge
  • Generate agility to react better and faster to upcoming threats
  • Enhance company culture by bringing people together

Automation within an organization has become the primary strategy to ensure the realization of departmental productivity and financial goals while maximizing customer service levels.

Specific Example: Accounts Payable Automation

Automated AP processes mean you are extracting invoice data, classifying documents, matching invoices with purchase orders and receipts, assigning GL distribution codes, and posting and archiving invoices – all quickly, automatically, and with benefits like great labor cost savings.

When a company is able to convert their process to an automated AP system, they are not only able to save money on labor costs, they are also able to increase productivity, improve cycle times, have fewer payment errors and take advantage of more early pay discounts.

In addition to the benefits listed above, taking the time to commit to a fully automated AP process will also allow a company to keep the AP process in-house. There will be no need to outsource operations, thus supporting job retention. By utilizing AP automation, a company enables employees to be as efficient as possible and to strengthen their impact on the company.




Please check back next week for a look at part 5 of this series where we will discuss ‘Employee Training’.


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on Monday, July 06, 2020 0
Most companies understand the need to reinforce their Procure to Pay cycle with supporting technologies. The right tools can eliminate time wasted, reduce the opportunity for errors or fraud, and help Procurement teams discover new opportunities through enhanced analytics. These are all valuable benefits, and companies who recognize them should get started down the path of P2P solutions. Right?

They’d be on the right track, but potentially the wrong train.

There’s a “garbage in, garbage out” element to this decision. After all, automating a poor process just leaves us with a bad automated process. These solutions, alone, can’t solve problems that exist at the fundamental level of our P2P processes. So, what should Procurement do?

Examine the Need from the Ground up

Examining any solution, P2P or otherwise, usually starts with framing it in the context of the issues it will help us solve. However, moving right from problem to platform skips an important step: thinking critically about what those issues are – and what is causing them in the first place.

Develop an end-to-end workflow of the process as it stands today. Think through each steps, and highlight critical issues for each. Do this through the lens of your team’s KPIs – are we missing the mark on timing? Do we have too many errors? What is keeping this process from functioning at a higher level?

From here, we can start thinking about process improvements. However, at this stage, we should not be framing those improvements in terms of any technology. In other words, we should consider this final question: “How would we address these issues if we weren’t planning on implementing a new P2P solution at all?”

Choose a Solution that Fits Needs

There are plenty of solutions to choose from in the market. The complexity of the products, the wide span of our processes they cover, and the number of options collectively make this a difficult choice.
Examining our needs as we did above is the first step toward making sense of it all. From the workflow we developed, we start to get a sense for the problems we have – both in terms of what we can solve through process improvement alone, and where we can leverage automation to take us to the next level. This second bucket is where we want to focus on during our review of solutions in the market.

Many solutions will have more functionality that we need or even want. While some companies may implement a solution across their entire workflow, many others choose one or two areas that are a specific pain point (in other words, are most damaging to the process) and expand the tool outwards from there.

In this context, we will need to outline our requirements very carefully. We will need to ensure we understand what we want to accomplish with a solution today as well as tomorrow, and select a solution that that fits this trajectory.

A Considered Implementation

Implementing new technology isn’t a simple matter when it is intertwined with business processes. We need to consider the transformative nature of these implementations. Before we start examining solutions, there are a few questions we must be able to answer:

  • Do we know who our stakeholders are? Who will be responsible for using the solution? An even wider net, who will be impacted by the solution’s successes or failures?
  • What is our Change Management plan? Do we have a strategy for training users and communicating the value of the change? How will we ensure that the implementation will solve our problems… rather than just adding new ones?
  • How are we measuring success? What could make the implementation a failure, and what are we doing to mitigate that risk?


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on Thursday, June 18, 2020 0
In recent years, there has been a major shift in how business leverage technology to automate and streamline procurement processes. Once regarded as a “nice to have”, technology implementations are now seen as a vital solution companies need to transform their business for the future. An unfortunate side effect of this thinking is that technology, specifically Procure to Pay technology is the silver bullet that can miraculously fix underlying gaps and inefficiencies in current business processes. This is where the role of a consultant comes into play, as the software and tools that will best support your existing P2P processes are often the most challenging to build and successfully implement. It can be normal for organizations to initially balk at the idea of bringing in a consultant to assist with new tech implementation or a digital transformation project.  There may be doubt that the consultant will fully understand their nuanced policies, or they may have had negative experiences with consultants in the past. However, a consultant with the right knowledge and skills can not only enhance your tech implementation initiative, but also save you time and money in the process. Below we will explore 6 ways consultants add value to your P2P tech implementation projects:

 Experience with the entire Source-to-Pay life-cycle
A good consultant will bring a wealth of knowledge to the table, including a holistic understanding of the entire procurement life-cycle. This knowledge gives a consultant a good understanding of how an organization’s Sourcing, Procurement and Accounts Payable teams should interface and how technology can best support that. A tenured consultant also understands industry benchmarks, best practices and how your organization measures up.

 Provide tailored solutions to nuanced business processes and challenges
An unfortunate trend we often see is companies purchasing and implementing expensive out of the box Procure to pay solutions. Many of these projects either fail or do no live up to initial expectations, as organizations often lack the experience needed to implement P2P software and adapt its functionalities around existing policy and procure. Involving a consulting team at the beginning of any implementation ensures that business policies are defined, understood, and documented. Software should then be configured around these processes allowing for tools to work in a way that business users understand and expect.

 Set expectations and help realize expected benefits   
A good consultant will help define and measure expectations and benefits before implementation of technology even begins. This is done by establishing a baseline strategy, identifying, and communicating with key stakeholders and documenting the objectives of the end users who will be using the technology daily. An aggregation of feedback from these decisions should allow consultants to communicate what benefits can be realized from implementation and how realistic achieving these benefits will be within the scope of the project.

 Establish effective change management strategies
There are three factors that must always be considered in a successful software implementation: People, Process, and Technology. As mentioned earlier, many organizations fall for the trap of solely focusing on the technology piece sometimes without considering, process or most importantly, the people who will be using the software. A fully functional software implementation is just as much of a failure if there has been no change management strategy in place to support the end user’s understanding and embracement of new technology. A part of a consultant’s role is helping to determine how change should be communicated, and who are they key people who need to understand these changes.

 Identify problem areas or gaps in processes
It is rare to not run into a business process or established policy that and out-of-box, or customized solution cannot fix. This can often lead to difficult or challenging discussions, but it is the job of a consultant to be transparent when your organization runs into such cases. Often these discussions can lead into identify gaps in processes or inefficiencies in ways of working the organizations have simply adapted to. A consultant’s knowledge of industry best practices and lessons learned from previous clients.

 Gauge maturity and assist with future growth
What we have frequently seen in implementation projects with no consultative engagement is that once these projects finish, the client is often left hanging. They have invested time, energy, resources and most importantly, money into a large technology overhaul but are left in the dark when determining next steps. How can they measure the ROI of this implementation? How can they determine the success of the project not only at its conclusion, but two, five, or even ten years down the line? A consultant can help determine your procurement and AP maturity before and post implement. A great consultant establishes a relationship with their clients and help them establish and ongoing road map for continuous improvement of the technology and the processes that drive it.

For more information about digital transportation with a consultative approach, please contact Corcentric’s Advisory team at our website.

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on Monday, April 13, 2020 0
In offices across the globe, people are working from home, companies have instituted hiring freezes, and for Procurement and Accounts Payable teams, the workloads have been lessened as fewer things need to be ordered or invoiced at the moment. If you are seeing a bit of a lull in the workload, this is the perfect time to review your policies and processes to review and fix your organization's pain points.

Policies
When was the last time your policies were reviewed beyond needing to add requirements coming from other departments, such as internal audit? Odds are, there are policies that haven’t been touched in years or decades but have been made obsolete. If AP is printing out every invoice to meet a policy requirement, look at updating that if the invoice is being saved in a robust, cloud-based P2P (Procure-to-Pay) program. 

Process
If you are spending less time putting out fires due to reduced Purchase Order & Invoice levels, use the time to brainstorm with your team about manual tasks and pain points. Are there better ways to do it? Does the policy that process is done for still exist? Is it even necessary? 

Last year, I worked with a manufacturer that required staff attach a screenshot of the inventory level in every order they placed in their MRP (Material Resource Planner) for the internal audit team to verify in spot checks. It was something they’ve done for years and needed to be done for thousands of orders per year. After some process review, it turns out that a couple years ago they had an auditable report of their inventory levels saved daily and the screenshot was no longer needed but time was still spent attaching it to every single order.

There are other areas to look at as well: Does the process align with your policies? What pain points could you invest time in reducing if you weren’t spending all day putting out fires? This is the time to look at those. Design the changes now, and when people arrive back to the office, transition to new processes before they settle into their previous bad habits.

Reporting
The best way to know if changes to the process and policies are working is reporting. Employee feedback is important, but a robust reporting structure would let you know exactly how certain items have changed, such as productivity, cycle times, etc. Understand what your executive team cares about and make sure you have solid reporting around those metrics. It also leads into the final part of the puzzle...

Demonstrating Value
Cost reductions will be happening at companies big and small over the next year as revenue projections are adjusted and we better understand the scope of the coronavirus impact. If Procurement or AP at your organization isn’t doing a good job at demonstrating value, now is the time to show it. If there is room to add value for the business, use this time to make changes: Automate your manual processes, attack pain points in the organization, and ensure you have solid reporting + KPIs to back up the value you’ll need to show senior leadership in the company. Changes now will help demonstrate your organization’s essential value once we all get back in the office.

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