Traditional vs Automated Procurement Process

Got major procurement issues in your organisation? You may well be able to use technology and automated procurement to solve them.

The procurement process is much more complex than it looks. The more complex it is, the higher the number of issues. An automated procurement process can help you prevent and resolve these issues. However, many companies still rely on a manual process. 

Let’s understand the challenges of the traditional procurement process and the ways automation can help.

Challenges of Traditional Procurement Process

A company practicing traditional procurement process faces a lot of challenges. Here are some of the major challenges of a traditional approach:

1. It’s Time Consuming

A traditional procurement process consumes a lot of time of both vendors and companies. As a result, it slows down the entire process and affects productivity. In addition to this, it can take days to communicate a single message and get the job done.

2. Chances of Duplication and Fraud

In a traditional procurement process, everything happens on paper so it becomes difficult for your team to keep track of everything. That’s why there’s little to no transparency in the dealings. This can lead to malpractice such as duplication of contracts or fraud. A single incident of fraud can affect your company’s reputation. 

3. Inefficient Data Management

An offline procurement process involves a lot of paperwork, so data management becomes challenging. In addition to that, it also increases the risk of errors. In spite of this, 54% of companies are still using a paper-based invoice process. 

Paper-based records are always vulnerable to tampering or loss of information and data. This can put your company in a troublesome position.

Benefits of Using Automated Procurement Process

Here are some important benefits of using an automated procurement process: 

1. Improves Efficiency and Speed of Procurement Process

By automating your procurement process, you can not only speed up the process but also increase efficiency. This helps your procurement team by saving a lot of their time for other important tasks.  

With an automated process, you can automate all the repetitive tasks. This helps you cut down on the amount of manual work for your team. It allows them to handle much more important and complex tasks. 

2. Creates a Centralised System

As mentioned above, a traditional procurement process can lead to duplication and fraud in contracts. For any company, there’s nothing scarier than this.

However, automation can help you minimize instances of duplication and fraud. It helps you create a centralized system for all of your data and documents. This allows your procurement team to easily track down the required documents.

3. Reduce Manual Errors

Unlike a traditional approach, automation eliminates paper-based documentation and decreases the risk of errors. When you follow a traditional approach, it not only consumes a lot of time but also invites risk.

So, it’s best to automate your procurement process and encourage a paperless process to reduce manual errors. It also allows you to store information and data easily and safely.

Do you want to learn more about issues in the procurement process and how automation can help you fix them? If so, check out this infographic from PurchaseControl.