A digital transformation expert has urged practitioners in managerial procurement and supply chain jobs to advance the profession’s diversification from cost centre to strategic business resource by adopting a range of best practice approaches.
As procurement jobs evolve to encompass new business objectives, including risk management, driving innovation, increasing revenues, improving cash, etc., business analyst Alex Saric, advises leaders in managerial procurement jobs to sustain this development by adopting the following measures:
Embrace digitisation
While the fast rise of AI-powered digital solutions will eliminate certain low-level procurement jobs, the ones that survive will be those whose practitioners know how to leverage the optimal results from the technology. As Saric observes, this technology isn’t going away. To thrive, procurement must adapt to it and redefine its role to become even more valuable to its organisation.
Integrate knowledge of global supply chains
As supply chains straddling the globe become ever-more complex, businesses become more dependent upon, and vulnerable to, multiple suppliers and therefore multiplying risks. Tools, such as SRPM solutions, can aggregate the necessary information and generate valuable insights at a stroke. Procurement managers are also best advised to mitigate risk by notifying any supplier at risk of cybersecurity threats.
Establish reliable data
New AI-powered technologies may be indispensable, but they can be undermined by poor quality data. Using integrated AI suites with a unified data model that generate clean data can circumvent this danger. New master data management systems can also clean and rectify supplier records, reducing risk and error in the process.
Be Darwinian ‘adaptationists’
Darwin didn’t attribute survival to the natural selection of the ‘fittest’ but to the most adaptable to changing circumstances. Successful procurement managers are helping their companies develop and sustain agility, adapting to new regulatory requirements and tariff landscapes.
Practice excellent customer care
Other employees in the organisation are procurement’s customers. Keeping them happy by making the procurement process painless, efficient and easy also keeps them well disposed.
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