The future of sourcing

Sourcing today can sometimes feel like the last 30 years didn’t happen. Why? Procurement teams still tend to use one tool for sourcing events, even with process digitalization in place. The tool in question? Excel.

Don’t get us wrong. We love Excel. Excel has been the backbone of Procurement for decades. Except that nowadays, there are better ways to source than exchanging endless emails and CSV files.

Procurement technology has been around for almost 3 decades. In fact, we can assign an “era” to each one: the ERP era, the integrated suites era, and the best-of-breed era.

Despite these technological leaps in procurement technology, Category Managers are not leveraging the opportunities available to them. This has consequences.

       1.  Sourcing becomes time-consuming and error-prone

       2.  Professionals struggle to incorporate internal or external information

       3.  Decisions are made in isolation and collaboration takes a back seat[AC1] 

In the webinar hosted by Sam Achampong from CIPS in May 2022, Procurement expert Fabian Lampe discussed his view on the future of Sourcing.

Three big takeaways:

       ·    Stop chasing pipe dreams!

       ·    Start small and stay agile

       ·    Think holistically

Watch the full webinar for a deeper dive into Fabian’s takes and an insightful discussion with Procurement thought-leader Sam Achampong (Regional Head of CIPS MENA).

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