The CPO's Guide to Smart Sourcing and Data Accuracy in Procurement

 

Procurement is a tale as old as time. But what happens when modern challenges hinder procurement teams from doing their jobs?   

What are the modern challenges? 

1. Inaccurate data and insights

Data accuracy and holistic insights are critical when making informed decisions. Reliable data is the critical piece in the puzzle to yield the most meaningful outcomes. 

2. Compliance-related complexity 

Failing to comply with government policies results in hefty fines. Without a centralised system, it can be difficult to ensure compliance of all transactions. With the right digitisation of processes, procurement teams can go paperless, ensuring all invoices and transactions are compliant with tax laws. 

3. Slow technology adoption

Digital solutions streamline procurement processes. The real challenge with implementing new systems is gaining buy-in from employees, suppliers, and vendors. 

Modern problems require modern solutions 

Business intelligence for cost-saving opportunities

A robust Business intelligence (BI) system relies on the quality of data it receives, and tools like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) can enhance data accuracy.  

We emphasise the importance of a decent OCR system to ensure data is captured correctly, enabling more informed decision-making.  

OCR enhances user’s lives by simplifying data capture and validation from documents. Not only improving the quality of the captured data but also allowing for the extraction of more information than would typically be feasible through manual entry.  

When combined with the latest generation of AI, OCR can effortlessly extract and contribute to a more abstract validation processes, such as language recognition, document type identification, categorisation and tagging. 

Effective data management

Having data is not enough if it is not relevant and structured correctly.  

An example of proper use of data would be identifying expense patterns. For example, employees’ preferences for certain hotels or car rental services.  

These insights enable procurement managers to negotiate better deals, leveraging their company's spending to get discounts from these providers.  
 
Observing expense patterns stimulates policy changes to reward beneficial trends. For example, 70% of employees already use a brand of rental cars. Advocating for privileged rates with this brand could increase usage of this rental company to 95%.

Implementing best practices with digital tools

Tools configured with best practices and internal policies help procurement teams gather well-organised data with minimal effort.  

A tool containing an automated decision and approval workflow helps procurement to facilitate quicker and more streamlined decision-making. With increased automation, you reduce manual errors and accelerate the procurement cycle. 

We listen to our customers and offer tailored solutions that meet their specific needs.  

A trusted solution for the future

The above article was recently featured in CPOstrategy Magazine.

If you’re curious to dive deeper into how Mobilexpense seamlessly aligns with TeamViewer’s next-generation tech stack, click the link below. On page 67, TeamViewer highlighted us as their trusted expense management partner, so we joined the conversation to share even more insights.

Read the full article TeamViewer article here: CPOstrategy Issue 54

If you want to know more about consolidating data, identifying expense patterns, and negotiating better conditions with suppliers, book a demo today.