by Olivier Audino | Aug 2, 2022 | Procure-to-Pay
Procurement (or purchasing) is the process for an organization to obtain products or services from external parties (market supply) to ensure that production and business activities are smoothly carried out. Procurement practices can be divided into two parts : Direct Spend and Indirect Spend.
Direct Spend
All materials, goods and services purchased by an organization in order to achieve the production of their own product(s). For instance, raw materials, machines, softwares etc…
Indirect Spend
All materials, goods, and services purchased by an organization for their internal use, e.g consultancy services, office supplies, software, hardware etc…
Procurement has to be constantly seamless in order to maintain the organization’s workflow.
Procurement Process
The procurement process (or purchasing process) includes collecting informations, inquiries, price comparisons, negotiations, evaluations, sample selections, decisions, requisitions, orderings, coordination and communication, reminders, purchase acceptances, and payment.
The enterprise procurement process generally comes in three forms: comparison, competitive negotiation and selection.
Comparison process and procurement methods
The purchaser issues invitation to tender (i.e solicit suppliers) and procurement documents;
Suppliers prepare and submit response documents in line with procurement requirements;
The purchasing officer reviews suppliers’ response documents and initially determines the best candidate suppliers to be selected.
(The number of candidate suppliers shortlisted is usually less than the number of response documents submitted, depending on the procurement project);
The buyer reserves the right to further negotiate with selected suppliers
The purchaser selects one supplier and notifies suppliers who did not fulfill the purchase requirements
The procurement officer draws up and signs a contract with the selected supplier.
Procedures for competitive procurement negotiation
The supplier prepares and submits preliminary responses as required by the procurement requisition;
The procurement officer conducts one or multiple rounds of negotiations with all suppliers and may negotiate terms and conditions;
The supplier gets the bid.
The purchaser then awards the supplier the contract, closes the deal as per negotiated terms and conditions.
How to build a procurement strategy ?
Achieving procurement goals require a procurement strategy and action plans. Through internal customer demand analysis, external supply market, competitors, supply basis and other criteria, procurement strategy is based on benchmarking.
Set long-term and short-term procurement goals for materials.
Find appropriate supply resources through appropriate actions to meet comprehensive KPIs.
Procurement Software
Procurement softwares go a long way in fortifying procurement strategy.
They play a big part in finding the right suppliers, establishing a relationship with them, making sure they contribute to the competitive advantage of the organization, and ensuring contract suppliance.
Especially now with the improvement of the strategic position of procurement departments within organizations.
Procurement has gradually changed from a programmatic, simple purchase-looking to a more cross-functional, and integrated function.
To learn more on Why your organization needs a procurement software to sustain its procurement strategy, download your free e-book here:
Webinar : How to map your spend and procurement data
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Olivier Audinoon 21 June 2019 at 18 h 46 min
Procurement is a very wide process where suppliers are the key partners. Many Procurement tools can help a Procurement Team either on online. What’s important remain the procurement quality process and the ongoing procurement performance and control.
Kevinon 21 June 2019 at 20 h 57 min
Good article thanks. The procurement landscape is flooded with so many activities now. Especially with the rising of procurement softwares there are tools to manage every section of procurement.
bconstantyon 21 June 2019 at 21 h 00 min
Thank you Kevin, yes these days allow for a deep and insightful approach of each aspect of procurement which is taking things to a new level.
Ernyon 21 June 2019 at 23 h 21 min
Thanks for this article. Procurement seems to evolve at a fast pace and I also imagine with AI and machine learning what it will be in the near future. Procurement 5.0
bconstantyon 21 June 2019 at 23 h 24 min
You’re welcome Erny. Procurement and Artificial Intelligence / Machine learning are a topic I go over in this article: https://sourcing-force.com/en/how-machine-learning-improves-data-cleansing/
Hope you’ll like it.Larry B.on 24 June 2019 at 16 h 51 min
Thank you for your procurement definition. For the last part about procurement softwares, I’ve noticed that procurement is not yet at the cutting edge of technology in most companies and we still see a lot of unheard buyers who try to put forth ideas regarding procurement softwares and the benefits they provide but fail to do so due to lack of time and messy organization.
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