JAGGAER, in cooperation with the Austrian Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BMÖ), have released the results from their global study, “Digital Procurement: Just Hype or the New Standard?” In the study, 168 companies of all sizes across multiple industries were evaluated on their current preparation and implementation strategies for digital procurement.
The majority of respondents reported progress towards digitalizing their procurement organizations. However, 83 pecent of companies are not taking full advantage of digital procurement’s potential and remain wary of using the newest cutting-edge technologies, such as blockchain, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and digital assistants/chatbots.
The study also recognized that investing in digital procurement is a priority. The majority of the survey responses listed future-oriented KPIs and big data analytics as top investment priorities, while new, less mature technology, such as blockchain (36 percent), RPA (48 percent) and digital assistants/chatbots (52 percent) were listed as lower priority areas. These results show that companies are taking a pragmatic approach to implementing new technology, and are waiting to see how “first movers” fare in order to minimize their own risk.
Overall, companies recognized that digitalization in procurement has the potential to improve performance. Respondents listed SRM, e-procurement, and e-sourcing software solutions as having the greatest potential for increasing efficiency. Big data analysis (53 percent), SRM, e-procurement and e-sourcing (46 percent), and future-oriented KPI analyses (40 percent) were all listed as having the greatest potential for increasing effectiveness in procurement and increasing the value that procurement adds to the entire organization.
“New technology is going to completely revolutionize the daily routine in procurement. By implementing modern procurement software, more than half of all procurement organizations have already taken the first big step towards digital end-to-end processes, automation, data consolidation, and using KPIs for strategic decisions. The results of the survey show that many companies are already better-equipped for digitalization than they may realize,” said Thomas Dieringer, managing director of JAGGAER EMEA. “The next step is to link data more effectively and use it more intelligently. This will open up many new opportunities for procurement that will give organizations a strategic advantage.”
