Procurement can involve a multitude of complex elements, but that doesn’t mean your procurement intake needs to be a complicated process. In today’s corporate world, it is essential to implement a procurement intake process. Doing so streamlines the procurement cycle, reduces the chances of errors, and ultimately saves you money. This article will go over the key reasons why a procurement intake process is no longer optional if you want to succeed in the current market.
Simply, procurement intake refers to the process a business takes to manage a new purchase request. The process starts when a need for a new product or service comes up within an organization. These can range from simple requests with a single category to bigger or more complex ones.
The intake process involves guiding the requester through the right steps to receive the requested product or service. Implementing a digitized procurement intake process that contains automation capabilities streamlines this workflow for the requester by reducing manual labour and the possibility of human error.
Intake-to-procure is the process in which companies capture and manage requests through to the purchase order or contact. Intake-to-procure includes all upstream procurement tasks like needs identification, request validation, approval acquisition, and vendor sourcing. An effective intake-to-procure system allows procurement teams to better optimize spending and lets the needed employees get involved in procurement requests earlier on in the process.
Over the last several years, companies have been realizing the increasing importance of intake management. Establishing effective procurement intake management within your organization is key to enhancing your orchestration efforts for three main reasons:
Centralized Visibility and Control
Having access to view and manage procurement requests and statuses from one centralized location allows companies to easily track demand, prioritize needs, and facilitate interdepartmental communication. This ensures that all stakeholders are up-to-date and aligned throughout the procurement process.
Enhanced Efficiency
A major plus of a procurement intake system is the standardization of processes. Standardizing the intake process and automating repetitive tasks leads to quicker turnaround times for procurement requests and fosters smoother orchestration, which also frees up your team’s time for higher-value tasks.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Procurement intake management allows for the easy collection of procurement-related data. This data offers organizations valuable insight into their spending patterns, supplier performance, and where optimizations could be made. Access to this data empowers decision-makers with the ability to negotiate better contracts and optimize procurement activities to better align with organizational goals.
A streamlined intake and orchestration process benefits your organization in several ways. Here are the main ones:
Risk Mitigation
A structured intake process and automation of repetitive tasks reduce the likelihood of miscommunication and human error. A standardized process also helps companies to enforce compliance with procurement policies and regulations. Doing so allows organizations to better manage risks associated with unauthorized purchases and compliance issues with legal and internal requirements.
Improved Supplier Relationships
Supplier relationships thrive when orders are processed in a timely matter, and communication is clear throughout the entire process. The combination of these two elements that result from a streamlined intake process ensures a stronger, more reliable connection with your suppliers.
Up-to-Date Accounts
A centralized location for supplier management and purchase requests ensures that accounts are kept up to date. This simplifies processes and contributes to cost savings as only needed accounts are kept open.
Better Resource Allocation
When an organization’s intake process is clear and simplified, it is easy to see where priority needs to be placed based on urgency and strategic importance. This allows for more effective allocation of resources and better alignment of procurement activities with organizational goals.
Transparency
A standardized procurement intake process and centralization of information allow all stakeholders to easily access and manage procurement requests. This facilitates transparency as not one person involved will be left in the dark on statuses and bottlenecks. This also encourages communication and collaboration between departments.
Standardized Request Forms
A standardized request form eliminates the need for back-and-forth communication and ensures consistency and completeness of the information collected. When your intake system includes standardized forms, it improves efficiency and accuracy within your procurement process.
Centralized Portal
A good procurement intake process should be managed from one centralized portal. When all information is accessible from one location and all stakeholders have access to it, there is less likelihood of miscommunication and error. Additionally, this encourages collaboration between departments, which speeds up problem-solving and cycle times.
Role-Based Access and Approval Workflows
Defined roles and creating approval workflows based on the nature and value of requests ensures that the right stakeholders are involved at each stage of the process. This helps maintain accountability and speed up approvals.
Automation and AI Capabilities
Leaving repetitive and basic administrative tasks to automated systems and AI frees up your team’s time for more important matters. This also improves consistency in procurement processes and reduces errors.
Training and Support
Training and ongoing support for users of your intake system is essential to ensure accuracy and compliance, as well as for improving employee confidence when submitting requests. A good procurement intake system, however, should promote adoption by being user-friendly and intuitive.
Performance Metrics and Continuous Improvement
Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor your procurement intake process. Utilize data and analytics to see where optimizations could be made. Regular review will improve the effectiveness of your procurement process over time.
ConvergentIS offers the only SAP BTP-based solution for intake management and orchestration.
With Rio, you have the SAP Intake Management Extended Edition, bringing advanced interaction across emails, Teams/Slack, non-SAP system integration out of the box, and enhanced compatibility + connectivity for ECC customers.
Is your team ready to take the next step? Download our free Intake Management assessment tool to find out.