Eight out of ten procurement professionals claim that in the past decade, their role has changed because of new digital technologies implemented within their businesses.
Research from eProcurement specialists, Wax Digital, shows that 60% of respondents claim that technologies to automate slow and labour intensive processes has enabled them to be more productive in their job role. While less than a quarter (22%) said that it had made little difference to their overall efficiency.
Over half of procurement professionals (54%) claim that digital transformation has made improvements to their businesses by eradicating or streamlining traditionally manual processes. Just under a third (30%) of those surveyed are yet to experience any benefits or consequences from the implementation of digital technologies.
Nine out of ten respondents believe that there’s room for improvement when it comes to digital transformation projects within their industries. 40% suggested a need for digital experts to help their organisations deliver training, 26% would have preferred a longer roll out time for the technology and 18% thought better communication should have taken place while the technology was being introduced.
Daniel Ball, business development director at Wax Digital said: “Procurement professionals have seen significant changes in their job role over the past ten years due to the impact of digital transformative technologies. For example, many organisations, paper-based contracts, supplier records or even invoices have been digitised, saving businesses time and man-power resource and enabling all this information to be available at their fingertips.”
“In addition, supplier auctions and tenders are now also more automated than ever before – RFPs are sent out automatically while eAuctions allow procurement professionals to extract more savings within an automated auction setting to drive savings.
“With eProcurement tools generating more data than ever before, those working in the procurement industry have seen their roles become more strategic rather than just solely operational. These professionals are now required to have strong analytical skills, negotiation abilities and excellent stakeholder management”.
