6 Steps for Procurement Professionals to Deliver Positive Impact in a New Team

As a new procurement professional, you can bring cost savings, improved supplier relationships, increased efficiency, innovation, better risk management and compliance to your organization. Studies show companies with strong procurement practices have higher profitability and fewer supply chain disruptions, while reducing costs and regulatory fines.

As a new procurement professional, there are several ways to make a positive impact on your organization. Here are a few examples:

Cost savings: A study by Deloitte found that companies that implemented strategic sourcing saved an average of 9.3% on their indirect spend. A similar study by Accenture found that companies that implemented category management saved an average of 14% on their indirect spend.
Improved supplier relationships: Strong supplier relationships can lead to better prices, better quality, and more innovation from suppliers. A study by McKinsey found that companies with strong supplier relationships had 12% higher profitability than companies with weak supplier relationships.
Increased efficiency: A study by the Hackett Group found that companies with best-in-class procurement processes had cost-per-invoice that was 45% lower than companies with average procurement processes.
Increased innovation: By working with suppliers and identifying new technologies and products, procurement professionals can bring new ideas and innovations to the organization. A case study by Cisco found that by working with suppliers to develop new products and technologies, they were able to drive $1 billion in new revenue.
Risk management: A study by Deloitte found that companies with strong supplier risk management practices had 50% fewer supply chain disruptions than companies with weak practices.
Compliance: Another important area of responsibility for procurement professionals is ensuring compliance with laws, regulations, and company policies. A study by the Compliance, Governance and Oversight Council found that companies with strong compliance programs had 30% fewer regulatory fines and penalties than companies with weak programs.

At FactWise, we are committed to building truly distinctive procurement products that delight users and facilitate their success. We strive to improve the lives of procurement personnel by leveraging automation and holistic analytics to minimize their time spent on low-value-add tasks such as repetitive document creation, internal and external communications, manual, Excel-based analyses, tracking complex workflows and so on, so that they can focus on more strategic concerns.

Our end-to-end Source-to-Pay platform has been built for self-serve and features an extremely intuitive interface that does not require lengthy trainings, so procurement managers can start using it for free, onboard their teams quickly, and avail of its instant time to value to enhance their function.

Stawan is the founder and CEO of FactWise. Before founding FactWise, Stawan was the NA TMT-Procurement Leader at McKinsey. Passionate about procurement, Stawan has 15 years’ experience in enabling clients of all sizes to achieve business impact via procurement.