Exploring the Value of Consolidating Spend with Electronic Procurement

Organizations can use many strategies to improve their back-office processes; approaches may vary based on the complexity of the process, the urgency of the problem, and the current state of the department. When automating Accounts Payable (AP), for example, organizations can often easily pinpoint the greatest issue, such as high paper volume, and move forward with a plan for fixing this problem with the appropriate change management strategy or automation technology. However, when it comes to Procurement, organizations’ purchasing processes often involve complex approval workflows, many different budgets, thousands of suppliers and supplier contracts, mountains of data, and millions of dollars of spend that must managed in a controlled manner. The widespread nature of the procurement process and its interconnection with many other backoffice departments makes it much more difficult to assess the current state or determine where and how to start with improvement.