Procurement Engineering
Implementing E-Procurement for Paperless Purchasing!

Strategic sourcing is a critical function within the purchasing organization. A procurement buyer is in effect, working to drive operational costs down when items and services are needed within the enterprise. Organizations rely on the buyer and the entire purchasing department to develop supplier relationships to deliver quality products and services at the best possible price points.

As purchasing departments get squeezed and are asked to do more with less people, the position becomes even more important. As a manager of sourcing, your role is to ensure the buyer group has the proper tools and procedures to accomplish this goal.

One of the strategies to accomplish this objective is to implement an e-sourcing tool that can drive the mundane parts of the sourcing process into the hands of the end user. This is a paradigm shift to the traditional sourcing process that can free up your procurement buyers to more supplier analysis and award the proper vendors based on purchasing guidelines.

With the traditional paper based processes, the end user cannot adequately perform this function so the buyer must step in to manage the entire process from end to end. Unfortunately, this reduces their effectiveness as they cannot handle the volume of work and the entire organization suffers. Once a simple e-sourcing tool is selected and deployed, the basic tasks of writing up a quote or other sourcing event and distributing to suppliers becomes easier to delegate.

Once the basic preparation and distribution tasks are simplified and in the hands of the end users, the buyer is allowed to have more focus and is engaged at the right time in the process. They will be able to work with the suppliers to do what they do best, negotiate and select the proper vendor to award the contract.

With this type of model in mind, the return on investment is faster as you begin to leverage the skills of your procurement buyer to engage with the supplier organization at the right time to maximize their time and skill sets.