In their quest for performance, more and more procurement departments are interested in project management tools to assign roles, plan tasks and track their execution. Aware of the challenge, business publishers are gradually adapting their offer.
While most companies do not have a dedicated tool to manage their files Purchases, the situation is expected to change rapidly. Indeed, according to the latest 360° e-purchasing study by Demat-Infos & IMA, nearly half of the purchasing departments have an ongoing deployment (15%), planned by mid-2016 (19%) or in the longer term (15%) in this area. It must be said that the use of such a tool has become essential to optimize the use of resources and control the flow of operations, then analyze the results. And this, both for the main objectives of the function (strategic projects) and for day-to-day procurement missions (operational projects). The largest companies are particularly concerned since, from a certain size of team, project managers and a fortiori the purchasing director no longer have sufficient and necessary visibility for effective management. Supervised and formalized management is also essential to facilitate communication and set the pace in projects.
For purchasing departments who wish to equip themselves, the question then arises of the type of solution: module of a business solution, specialized software package, specific application?
While many cover these aspects, at least in part, most e-shopping publishers feel that the demand for this type of feature is just starting to take off. Management of purchasing files from office software, messaging or collaborative bricks remains privileged, especially in small structures. On the side of the major contractors, many purchasing departments would still be satisfied with a specialized but generalist tool, as there are dozens on the market. A tool often made available to all the company's entities by a transversal project management unit responsible for supporting operational staff.
Only, if they are powerful, these tools are often complex and not at all adapted to purchasing issues, in terms of processes (many files to be processed in parallel, wide variety of categories, intervention of suppliers, etc.) and organization (fragmented teams, multiple roles, various interlocutors, etc.). They also do not offer natural links with the different e-shopping bricks, ensuring consistency of information and fluidity in exchanges. It is for these reasons that mature purchasing departments and those most advanced in their computerization preferred, a few years ago, to develop their own application. Because in the business solutions market, publishers are only beginning to catch up. Most often, the resource allocation and scheduling functionalities were underlying the e-sourcing module and were based on the different stages of the process.
Several publishers assure that they offer a dedicated module for a few years now, allowing collaborative work as part of the typical course of a procurement project. But additional functionalities are needed to consolidate information and offer reporting to monitor the execution of tasks, conduct an analysis of the results and then define longer-term action plans. This, for unit purchasing files or globally.
Part of this approach, certain solutions (Ariba, Ivalua, etc.) make the link with performance management, to measure the activity of buyers, or to know the portfolio of suppliers and amenities they are able to support. Finally, the project management module of the e-procurement tools must also be able to be used very early to define the organization, processes and structural elements (references, indicators, etc.) of the purchasing function.