How to Ensure High Performance Procurement Contracts

If you want your business to thrive, sticking with the status quo isn’t enough. Ensuring high performance in procurement is the only way to stay ahead of the competition.

With a volatile economy, the need for superior supply management and increased organisational efficiency is vital. Organisations feel the pressure to contain costs while maximising results.

However, incremental improvement won’t work. For long-term success, a transformation of key processes is required. Supply chain managers must accept nothing less than adopting the methods that can make their organisation best in class.

How Well is Your Company Covering the Basics?

While innovative solutions will be important going forward, the foundation of high performance is mastering the basics. Ensuring contract procurement efficiency based on solid core processes will lead to savings in both time and resources, driving better outcomes.

According to data collected by the Aberdeen Group, 70 per cent of procurement executives cite addressing and streamlining indirect spend processes as a top focus for controlling and reducing costs.

While many procurement executives have found ways to rein in cost inefficiencies in direct spend, they are also finding that tried-and-true techniques for reducing costs aren’t working.

So, how can you ensure high performance in your procurement contracts? The following areas contain some of the most targeted ways to achieve success:

Making Use of Mobile Apps to Expedite Processes

Employing the use of mobile apps can help with contract execution.

Mobile apps allow your employees the ability to use real-time information. This will help managers rapidly adapt to the changing procurement environment around them.

Dole Foods is a prime example of how mobile technology can expedite key business processes. The company created a mobile app to streamline key components of logistics and workflows.

Case Study: Dole Foods

Dole Foods is currently the world’s largest producer of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as high-quality packaged foods. The organisation markets and sells their products in over 90 countries.

However, today’s economic conditions along with changing consumer preferences, rising competition, and new regulatory hurdles caused the company to seek new ways to support continued growth.

Their partnership with SAP for core operations was already proving extremely effective; however, accessing the tracking and management software from laptops and desktops alone was becoming cumbersome.

The solution was a user-friendly mobile app, allowing Dole employees to stay productive while on the go. Now, purchase orders can be addressed and managed on their smartphones and tablets.

The ready-to-use P.O. Approval app is fully integrated with Dole Foods’ on-site SAP system. The result is seamless performance.

Employing Multiple Communication Channels

While face-to-face meetings are ideal, they are not always possible. This is where communication software can be invaluable.

Its cloud-based capacity allows for instant communication, the inclusion of multiple collaborators, and permanent record keeping of all communications.

Internally, your team may want to use Slack. This ensures all relevant parties receive the information in a timely manner. And, when everyone is knowledgeable, the risk of errors and legal concerns are reduced.

Automation: Now is the Time

Companies should consider automating to help accelerate key processes. Automated template management can provide a major time-saving benefit. It deploys unlimited customised office templates to all employees.

A contract management template ensures that all the necessary language and concepts are included in your contracts. You can create boilerplate documents that can be easily personalised for special circumstances.

Seamless Supplier Onboarding

Document management is key to never misplacing a critical item. Create a central repository to store all important compliance and legal documents related to each supplier.

Establishing a contract repository provides organised storage of documents. Furthermore, contracts can be securely shared. Permission settings allow for even more in-house confidentiality.

Ensure High Performance

In today’s economy, high-performance procurement contracting is essential. Accuracy and efficiency can lead to significant time and cost savings. Take your business procurement performance to the next level.