Procurement Magazine August 2024 | Page 21

done there adds value to that activity and if there are things in there that allow variations to enter into your business process that don ’ t need to be there .
An effective strategy is kind of what happened with the Lean and Six Sigma initiatives . People really started to look at what they were doing , where there was waste , where there was variation that they could eliminate and they had techniques to get rid of that .
Q . HOW VITAL IS IT THAT YOUR TECH IS STRONG ENOUGH TO MAXIMISE YOUR PROCUREMENT EFFORTS ?

» It ’ s very critical . Don ’ t just use technology to take something that you ’ re not doing well and automate it . All that ’ s going to do is get something done faster that ’ s being poorly done . You have to have your strategy to start with that ’ s the right one for your company and what your company objectives are .

You need to consider time to market , price , sustainability before working outwhere would automation help getting things that I need , like cleaner data .
I have all of this data coming in from all of the procurement activities and purchase orders that I put out . I need to be able to get a better idea of my demand . I need to get a better understanding of my inventory . I need better analytics . You should be looking for areas in your process where some level of automation and consolidation could help you get data faster , analyse it faster , make sure it ’ s cleaner and give you better insights into how well your strategies are working and how effective your results are .
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