As we ended off in Part 1, nothing about the Procurement process is complex, because, as we said, the foundations of Procurement and Purchasing haven’t changed since the first manual was published 137 years ago, its just that more steps were added and, more importantly, the introduction of bad Procurement systems that took a simple, but involved, process and turned it into a nightmare.

It is upon these nightmares, and the fears they inspire, that the marketing madmen and consulting con-men are playing up the madness, and, even worse, vendors with new systems with no real functionality, a slick UI and easy organization-wide SaaS access are promising to reduce the complexity when all their system does is increase the visibility into the utter lack of capability these all sizzle and no steak intake/orchestrate/easy-punchout systems offer.

The reality is that while many of the first, and some of the second-generation, monolith systems didn’t give a lot of visibility beyond the requisition, or only did if you bought licenses for everyone who needed to make a req (so they could have full read access system wide, which, of course, made the system too expensive for any but a F500/G3000; for e.g. Coupa was designed since its launch on Procurement Independence Day to allow anyone in the organization to do Procurement and have complete visibility into where every req is at all times, but the Coupa model is pay by seat and the platform requires user accounts to configure the right visibility access across the platform).

However, most of the true SaaS e-Procurement systems that were built from the ground up in the 2010s were built with full visibility and organization wide access in mind, mitigating the need for these modern intake systems. First problem solved.

Second, these systems were built from the ground up to support the processes a Procurement Department needs to actually do real Procurement. Second problem solved.

Third, the best systems were designed to be usable and make Procurement easier than doing it by hand (but they had to be properly selected and configured). Third problem solved.

And these problems have been solved for over a decade. For example, Vroozi met all these requirements a decade ago. (And they aren’t the only ones!) You just have to look beyond the same-old, same-old big suites that are covered by the same old analyst firms year-over-year, and the marketing madness being pumped out on a daily basis by the new age sizzle that raised way too much money and hired way too little intelligence. If you look beyond the hype, you’ll find there are quite a few smaller, quieter vendors out there that have been working hard for years to build real tech that solves real problems in a really usable way — solutions that are also affordable (because if you don’t raise too much money, you don’t have to raise the price tag ridiculously either to generate the returns needed to keep your jobs and the costs of the inflated marketing and sales budgets). (And remember, there are more vendors than you think. Likely 646 more vendors. With hundreds covered on SI over the past eighteen years, summarized in the Vendor Post Index and Vendor Posts Archives as well as hundreds more covered by the doctor over on Spend Matters between ’16 and ’22 IF you have a Content Hub subscription.)

You just need to know what to look for.

Not that long ago, SI published a piece that Procurement Should NOT Be Reimagined!. While there was little public response, there was some private response as some, like the doctor, wondered why some people were stating that Procurement needed to be reimagined (besides the mad marketers trying to spread the marketing madness) while a couple of old grey beards (who have been around since before S2P systems hit the scene) offered some deep insight having seen the progression of Procurement since the first custom Procurement solutions hit the market until the present day.

The insights centered around the facts that:

• grand proclamations make for grand marketing
• over complications of relatively simple processes makes for big consultancy projects (just because something requires a lot of steps or a lot of paperwork doesn’t mean that it’s complex, but if you think it does …)
• if you say it enough, Procurement Pros start to believe it
• if they believe it, don’t have the training to do the job, or, are just lazy, convincing management that it’s complex minimizes their accountability if they screw up (or don’t have the training to do it right)
• hiring overpriced consultants allows them to pass the buck

With the exceptions of:

• marketers wanting to add to the madness
• consultants wanting to make another six to eight figures

The two roots of the problem are that:

• many Procurement Pros, for one reason or another, believe it is complex
• some don’t want the responsibility or the workload (which can be heavy without the right system)

So why do they think it is complex?

The Procurement process is very involved. Even the identification of a new commodity vendor is quite a process. First you have to identify suppliers that supply a product that meets the specification. That means a lot of searches, a lot of specification reviews, and then the creation of a list of potential suppliers.

Then an RFP has to be created that defines all the specifications for the product, as well as all the requirements a supplier has to meet to be considered. This requires more work.

Then the winning supplier(s), and back-ups, have to be onboarded (in case negotiations fail with one or more of the winners), and, these days, that’s quite an ordeal. Verify the supplier’s business details, their insurance, their regulatory compliance, their risk profile, their banking information, etc. etc. etc.

Then, when you make the award, you have to populate the catalog, define the budget categories, preferred status, etc.; define the rules on who can buy/reserve from inventory; define the rules when the (combined) purchase orders are placed; define the approval rules/chains; etc. And then set up the invoice processing and verification rules, the matching rules, and the payment rules.

And then, when the orders come in, verify them, approve them, deal with the match discrepancies, authorize and make the payments, and then manage the inventory.

Nothing about this is complex, because, as we said, the foundations of Procurement and Purchasing haven’t changed since the first manual was published 137 years ago, its just that more steps were added and, more importantly, the introduction of bad Procurement systems that took a simple, but involved, process and turned it into a nightmare.

… to be continued.