Finding The Right Source-To-Pay Solution: A Guide For The C-Suite
Source To-Contract
For finance departments in large enterprises, source-to-pay (S2P) solutions are essential in order to make any supply chain processes more organized, efficient, and cost-effective. The right source-to-pay solution should effectively cover their end-to-end supply chain management requirements. Thus, it is paramount to precisely analyze ones procure-to-pay (P2P) requirements in order to make smart, informed selection of an S2P solution provider.
Considering the value-adding nature of source-to-pay solution, the C-suite of finance department can benefit from taking the following steps in order to find the best-fit isolution for their requirements.
Step 1: Analyze Your Requirements
The first and foremost step involves analyzing the needs and requirements of the financial operations of an enterprise. What kind of enterprise supply chain solutions are already in place? Is there already the presence of some S2P solutions? Are there any processes in the procurement cycle which require major revamping? How performance measurement can be done without hindering operational efficiency? What are the gaps that point towards need for source-to-pay solution? Furthermore, it is important to understand how much scalability should the S2P provider offer to the enterprise.
Step 2: Do Your Research
Once the requirements and needs of the enterprise are evaluated and understood, meaningful research should be carried out in order to determine the best-fit isolution provider. Well-known industry experts and platforms should be leveraged to understand the market offerings and the solutions that are best suitable for particular supply chain requirements. Such research shall also include to understand what kind of solutions are already in use globally by renowned enterprises.
Step 3: Collate Equipment Suppliers
Once the S2P solutions have been shortlisted, it is of paramount importance to perform due diligence and narrow down the list of potential solutions based on their offerings, value propositions, capabilities, and functionality. At the same time, the business values and organizational needs must also be kept in mind in order to identify the true solution that meets the organizations criteria.
Step 4: Evaluate Offers and Lead Times
The finance department of the enterprise must establish comprehensive well laid out plan of evaluating solution providers which best suit its requirements. The evaluations must cover factors such as cost reduction, suppliers’ evaluation, vendor selection, supplier?s onboarding, contract management, legal implications, target fulfillment and accuracy, and service level agreement. Furthermore, information should also be collected regarding the lead times of the procurement of materials and goods that are likely to be adopted by the organization.
Step 5: Define Supply Chain Strategy
After suitable solution provider has been decided, it is essential to define detailed and comprehensive supply chain strategy. By outlining plan of action, objectives and goals can be set out for clearly defining the needs and requirements of the enterprise and imposing standards of success on either its short-term or long-term objectives. These objectives must be realistic, measurable and achievable. It is advised to include activities such as cross-borders supply chain, automate ordering processes and optimization of inventory management, based upon the complexity of the S2P requirements.
Step 6: Implement and Execute
Once the strategy has been laid out, the finance department must monitor and evaluate the performance of the S2P solution provider. progress review should be conducted periodically upon key stages of the implementation process in order to ensure the satisfactory execution of activities. Additionally, risk management system must be put in place to identify issues within the performance of the selected source-to-pay solution provider.
Step 7: Measure, Evaluate, and Refine
To make sure that the S2P solution is contributing towards markable success of the enterprise, performance and outcome must be consistently measured and evaluated. To scientifically approach this evaluation, analytical tools can be deployed to capture and measure real-time data such as top performing suppliers, revenue projections, cost savings, and other such benchmark indicators that can gain insights into the effectiveness of the source-to-pay solution.
Conclusion
The success of any source-to-pay solution lies in the capability of the enterprise to accurately assess its S2P requirements followed by the selection of best-fit isolution provider and effectively executing the desired strategy. Thus, following the aforementioned steps can prove to be an effective way of enriching and optimizing the procure-to-pay processes of an enterprise.
