I mentioned here my meeting with Kevin Potts of Emptoris. We discussed 6 key trends they see emerging – while they have a focus on software and solutions, I thought they were interesting and pretty perceptive indicators of what I suspect is occupying the minds of many top procurement practitioners.
1. Get value faster; integrate systems and processes, move quickly, capture the value.
2. Clear roadmap for investment; track savings, use a step by step ‘business release mehodology’ to link investment with returns
3. Risk reduction; a growing focus throughout the sourcing process, across supply chains and in ongoing contract management
4. Transparency; a need to understand suppliers and supply chains better and know what is going on (particularly key in emerging markets)
5. Global expansion and approach; self explanatory, but the refocusing of the world economy towards BRIC is making this more important by he day for ‘western’ firms
6. Focus on adoption; somewhat systems specific, but this stresses the importance of getting a broad user base for procurement systems and technology; the same applies I believe to compliance and processes. It is not enough any more for procurement to do a pretty good job managing 30, 40 or 50% of the organisation’s spend
Getting value and competitive advantage; managing risk; and making procurement effective across the stakeholder base. They have always been the challenges for procurement in the 25 years I’ve been involved; they still are. But as I said before, technology is opening up some very new ways to help us achieve these traditional goals.
