Watch for the Next Evolutionary Phase
A new procurement era dawned with the rise of trading exchanges. In actuality, the formation of these new supply chain species is just an interim step in an ongoing evolutionary process. The result will be a more upright-walking descendant of the...
[From iSource Business, December 2000] By-products of 1990s ERP implementations directly affected B2B purchasing and supply management, formalizing data for communication by electronic means. Business rules such as part-classification taxonomies, base units of measures and even data structures were defined implicitly around interactions with trading partners. In fact, these elements of effective catalog management are today at the core of the commerce engines offered by companies such as Ariba and Commerce One.
When ERP systems aggregated spend information across divisions and product lines, it became easier for organizations to strategically view their entire spend portfolio. This aggregation increased pressure on the supply base to reduce cost, demonstrating that information truly is power. One of the next steps in procurement's evolution
