Is your team spending days combing through their inbox for hard-to-find contracts? Are they drowning in paperwork, email threads, and constant email contact?
People are reporting spending up to five hours a day checking their emails. That’s a lot of time spent chained to their inbox!
If so you’ll want to reassess your procurement workflows. The phrase ”time is money” has never felt more true than when you’re looking at your procurement.
Each new contract with a supplier can end up adding up. Each time your team researches purchasing equipment, they’re saving receipts and email threads.
When you don’t have an organized and speedy workflow in place, you lose precious money and time. Read on for helpful tips on how to simplify your procurement workflows.
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Say Goodbye to Paper
To simplify your workflow, you’ll want to take a look at how dependent you’ve been on paper. For example, where are your inventory buying and purchase inventory information saved? If they’re saved on a hard drive or worse, printed out and in a filing cabinet, time for a change.
It’s easy to sink under a mountain of paperwork. Consider a cloud software solution for your team. It will lessen the workload for your employees.
Your information will be easily accessible and organized. It shortens the procurement process because each team member knows what’s going on. Your team can also use cloud software to send invoices, and deal with contracts digitally.
Mind Your Network
Think about how your team is working with others outside the company. How are you working with your vendors and suppliers? You may benefit from support for your global procurement.
Working with an outside company means you deal with fewer purchase orders. They can help with supply chain management or act as a merchandise buyer.
They handle procurement and even special projects. Working with an outside company is a great idea when you’re running short on time or staff.
Sourcing Workflows
Part of procurement is tracking down who you wish to work with, not just purchasing. You can use recurring calendar events for your team to work on sourcing.
You can set up sourcing workflows, such as events for potential suppliers. By creating a reoccurring event for your team, they’ll be on top of this part of the workflow.
The events are a great way to assess different suppliers at once. You can learn what competitive value they offer you and strengthen your networks.
Improve Your Procurement Workflows
Improving your procurement workflows doesn’t have to be complicated to make a difference. By updating and modernizing your process you’ll save money and time.
Your employees will have a better grip on what needs to be done. Combine this with assessing your network and contracts.
You can team up with an outside company to take on tasks your team is too busy for. And you can work on recurring events to maintain beneficial relationships with suppliers.
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