Digitalizing Core Processes

How to Exploit the Full Potential of Procurement 4.0

Big data, Procurement 4.0, Industry 4.0, business process engineering, IoT, cloud computing: as time goes on, digitalization is an area that’s going to have an ever-increasing influence on business processes in general and procurement in particular. So it’s all the more important for companies to make the most of the opportunities that the digitalization  of procurement processes already presents. That’s why we aim to help you eliminateinefficiencies stemming from a lack of integrated digitalization, thereby completing the industrialization and digitalization of your procurement department as part of our IDEa concept.

What Does the Integrated Digitalization of Core Processes Actually Involve?

The integrated digitalization of strategic procurement doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the work that needs to be done. But it does streamline and accelerate the work process through technological innovations. This also significantly increases the quality of those processes. The aim is, by using sets of rules that can be clearly conveyed, to have IT systems perform repetitive, time-consuming work processes that are prone to error, instead of staff doing them. This ensures that data, analyses, and decisions are always of the same high quality.Cycle times are improved and personnel costs are significantly reduced. In Procurement 4.0, people are only deployed at points where decisions have to be made that an IT system cannot, may not or should not make on its own.
 

How do we undertake the integrated digitalization of core processes?

1. Analyze existing IT systems in procurement
2. Evaluate which processes and tasks are (or should be) supported by IT systems
3. Define the performance IT systems need to have to support the tasks and processes
4. Determine the required level of data granularity (→ what level of data detail is required?)
5. Ascertain the need to optimize existing IT systems
6. Define specifications for adapting existing systems and introducing new ones
7. Select IT service providers to implement the adjustments defined in the specifications
8. Monitor the IT service provider when they implement and review the adjustments in the specifications

Our Software Consulting Services

If you want to gain more insight into our approach, we offer a one-day workshop that covers the following topics:

• Assessing which procurement processes should be optimized using systems
• Defining the requirements IT systems need to meet to support procurement processes
• Evaluating existing systems, taking into account the requirements of procurement
• Developing optimization steps for existing systems
• Developing an implementation plan to improve existing systems and introduce new ones

Find out about the preceding steps in our IDEa concept here: