Procurement Best Practices in 2015

One of the big advantages of Bellwether Purchasing Software is that all vendor, price, procedural and other updates are automatic. That means these changes are seamlessly implemented without any need for technical support. The problem with many other types of purchasing software is automatic updates aren’t possible. Instead, all updates have to be pushed out in a manual and time-consuming manner. With other forms of software that don’t support automatic updates, developers have a reason to avoid improving their software on a regular basis. But as anyone who works as a purchasing manager knows, this field continues to expand and evolve. As a result, many types of software quickly become outdated and end up making life harder for purchasing managers instead of helping them save time. Since Bellwether Purchasing Software isn’t constrained by those types of limitations, we spend a lot of time speaking with purchasing managers about their workflow. By making these conversations a priority, we’re able to come up with new ideas that we can implement to make Bellwether Purchasing Manager Software even more useful. And because talking to purchasing managers allows us to stay on top of what’s happening in this line of work, we thought it would be helpful to spotlight a few of the best procurement practices for the current calendar year: The Current State of Procurement If you’ve been in this field for awhile, you probably remember a time when your primary mandate was to keep costs low. And your secondary mandate was likely along the lines of ensuring that supply is available at all times. While we can all agree that thinking along those lines is outdated, the reason it’s worth bringing up is to show how far this field has come. In its current state, there are over a dozen responsibilities that professionals like purchasing managers must consistently deliver. Identifying opportunities for savings, prioritizing improvement initiatives, delivering applicable quick win savings, improving spend visibility, ensuring proper integration and improving performance management are just a few examples of what’s required of modern purchasing managers. How Procurement Best Practices Have Evolved Since this field has seen such significant expansion, it’s not surprising that current best practices have evolved as well. While you could fill an entire book with the procurement best practices for 2015, the key takeaway is that this department needs to function in a way that’s active instead of reactive. For example, procurement professionals now need to have a detailed understanding of their suppliers’ business practices. Although that’s a task that can take some time to accomplish, it’s the perfect example of the type of practice that needs to be in place so that a procurement department can run at optimal efficiency. If you want to ensure you’re following best practices because you want to maximize your productivity, be sure to take a minute to contact us at Bellwether Purchasing Software to look at all the different ways we can help you achieve that goal.