As business environments change at a rapid pace, procurement functions are under increasing pressure to deliver benefits beyond cost savings. By leveraging approaches such as category management and transforming processes using digital solutions, organizations have derived significant business value. However, most of these efforts have primarily focused on indirect spend management.
Today, many organizations manage direct spend categories through traditional ERP and legacy systems, which limit the benefits they can achieve – even with effective category management. Going forward, organizations are likely to realize a new wave of benefits by leveraging digital solutions such as advanced analytics, intelligent automation, Internet of Things (IoT), mobility, and blockchain to drive real value from category management.
This viewpoint discusses the need for a robust digital category management approach to manage direct spend categories and includes the following topics:
Digital solutions that are driving more effective category management for direct spend
Potential business outcomes companies can achieve by integrating these digital solutions
Key considerations that companies need to keep in mind when deploying digital solutions to manage direct spend categories
