Implementing A Source-To-Pay Solution To Reach Procurement Benchmarks
Procurement Benchmarks
For organizations looking to elevate their procurement efficiency and efficacy, Source-to-Pay solution is increasingly becoming of paramount importance. This type of solution differs from traditional ones in its all-inclusive nature enabling executive stakeholders, such as finance and procurement officers, to streamline many stages of the procurement process from purchasing to payments. Automation and digitalization of the procurement process, can stand to benefit any organization when successful implementation is achieved. This article will provide guidance on this process and discuss the essential components to be taken into consideration when introducing suite of Source-to-Pay solutions to reach and exceed procurement benchmarks.
Non-suitable, outdated manual and disconnected processes in the procurement process can present serious business challenges, like added costs and stricter compliance mandates. The introduction of Source-to-Pay solution can rid of many of these complexities, by aiding finance and procurement departments in gaining greater visibility into the procurement process throughout its entirety. These suit is allow process flows to be optimized by cutting out manual steps, like invoice payment and purchase requisitions, and reducing errors.
The introduction of reputable Source-to-Pay solution at the organization will help drive process efficiency, resulting in better control over risk management and compliance objectives. These solutions provide advanced analytics and AI capabilities which enable the execution of faster, smarter purchases and invoice payments, ensuring that no relevant factors or details in the process were missed.
1. Establish Objectives and Tailored Requirements
This step entails taking stock of existing procurement operations and outlining the objectives to be achieved. Making sure these objectives are well-defined is crucial to the success of the process. Also, taking the necessary time to ensure that any requirements to be catered to by the Source-to-Pay solution are specific to the organization and tailored to its needs is essential.
2. Select Vendor with Supportive Solutions Comprehensive Services
After deciding the objectives that need to be met, prospective vendors can be reviewed and chosen based on the solutions they offer. While the cost of the solution is important, considering the vendor?s reputation and customerservice should take higher priority. This can be assessed by looking at customer reviews and reading up on industry wide experiences.
3. Facilitate Implementation
In this step, the chosen vendor will roll out its comprehensive suite of solutions. The vendor should work closely with stakeholders to identify the areas of the purchasing cycle that will benefit the most from automation and to develop suitable interfaces for implementation.
4. Verify UAT
Once the implementation of the suite has taken place, it is essential to verify the user acceptance testing (UAT) of the Source-to-Pay solution within the procurement process. This includes assessing how well the process works within the organization and if the suite had any effect on the objectives that were initially set.
5. Conduct Ongoing Monitoring Management
Assessing the performance of the Source-to-Pay solution should continue even after the initial UAT has been completed. This requires ongoing management of the program to ensure that its effectiveness is regularly checked and that any errors or security threats are detected early on.
6. Utilize Advanced Analytics
Once the Source-to-Pay solution has been introduced and is functioning properly, utilizing advanced analytics and AI capabilities can help improve visibility within the end-to-end process. These capabilities can help identify inefficiencies and cost savings with greater accuracy.
Introducing Source-to-Pay solutions within organizational procurement processes is great way to go beyond attaining the desired performance levels, by streamlining and controlling the process. In order for successful implementation to take place, organizations should take the sequencing of steps seriously and use best practices from the C-Suite perspective in order to guarantee that the desired objectives are achieved. This guide will undoubtedly act as starting point for executive stakeholders, who are looking to up their procurement game.
