But if you want to call the steps bold, go ahead, no one will challenge you because in many Procurement departments you have to be bold to force the first steps.

A recent article over on 3news.com did a great job of summarizing those procurement steps for a transformed procurement structure in 2024, proving that the state of affairs is the same globally and the good advice the same globally.

The article had five solid suggestions that are universally true globally across direct, indirect, services, and complex procurements. Since you can read about them in depth in the aforementioned article, as well as numerous posts here on Sourcing Innovation, we’ll just summarize them here.

Spend Analysis

If you don’t know what you’re spending where, with whom, and why, you won’t be able to improve it.

Category Managed Procurement

There’s no one size fits all procurement strategy and, for sourcing, procurement technology, so taking it on a category basis is a great start.

Cost Savings and Cost Avoidance

You can’t always find savings in an inflationary economy, so you have to increase focus on cost avoidance and ensure that nothing is bought that isn’t needed, and costs are maintained where they can’t be decreased.

Digitization / e-Procurement

Use digital systems to undertake e-Procurement, and, in particular, focus on ePro/I2P/P2P as you want the core Procurement process digitized, and POs and Invoices in particular, as you can’t analyze spend you can’t capture, and you can’t ensure you’re paying the right price without a system to enforce it, so if you don’t have a modern e-Procurement system, get one.

Sustainable Procurement

Do your best to procure responsibly to reduce waste, energy consumption, and overall costs.

About the only core requirements that are missing are:

RFX

Make sure you can get good, documented, quotes to back up your Procurements.

Supplier Management

Make sure you can identify, onboard, manage, and track all of your suppliers throughout the business relationship lifecycle.

It’s all Procurement 101, but if your organization hasn’t taken any of these steps, you may have to be bold and force your organization into the modern Procurement age.