Nor do you need the CFO to give you a big fat check either! If you want more automation in your supply chain, and according to the recent A.T. Kearney Indirect Procurement Study titled Higher Visibility, Greater Expectations, most of you do, all you have to do is call up one of a few dozen e-Procurement providers with a (new) SaaS offering and tell them you’re ready. Not only can you start for a small monthly fee, but the savings will pay for the system many times over.
And if you don’t know what system is right for you, just re-read SI’s recent series that provides A Hitchhiker’s Guide to e-Procurement. It will assist your organization in determining what is really important, what functionality the organization should be looking for, and how the solution compares to other solutions in the marketplace.
Stop waiting, and start buying. Considering you can pay by the drink, quit any time, and take your data with you … in the worst case, you select a system that only enables part of the efficiencies that are available, but that allows you to determine the full extent of the efficiencies the organization could reach with a system more in tune with the best practices the organization identifies as appropriate for adoption. In this case, you simply cancel the monthly contract and migrate to the new system, and triple the organization’s savings.