Global retail businesses like Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay have built a strong identity despite different impeding factors like high inflation rates. These big brands have well-structured operational systems unique to their services that simplify business processes to attain their set targets. The ability to manage corporate costs, not at the expense of customers’ demands has made these corporations stay relevant in their market.
An effective approach that makes prominent retail businesses successful at what they do is the application of an intelligent procurement solution.
WHAT IS AN INTELLIGENT PROCUREMENT SOLUTION?
Every retail business owner knows how challenging manual procurement can be. It is also time-consuming, and mostly inefficient.
But not with an intelligent procurement solution.
An intelligent procurement solution helps companies, or in this context, retail businesses manage all the details of their vendor-related spend in a central digital location. With an intelligent procurement management solution, you can have a holistic view of how much you spend on making purchases for your business.
This solution also helps you leverage tools for digital transformation including artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to optimise your entire procurement process.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Typically, procurement solutions integrate different procurement functions by creating a channel that allows seamless procurement, data storage, and analytics.
Although every procurement solution has its distinct features and functions, an intelligent procurement solution can help your business in numerous procurement operations such as;
- Smart purchase requisition
- Automated invoice approval
- Vendor management
A procurement software solution is the most efficient way to manage all of these at once to avoid performance-related issues and disruptions from market trends.
WHY DO RETAIL BUSINESSES NEED INTELLIGENT PROCUREMENT SOLUTIONS?
Decades ago, procurement was only viewed as a cost-cutting operation. Fast forward to this decade, procurement has become a strategic avenue for business growth. Every business, particularly in the retail industry requires an intelligent procurement solution to surmount the rising procurement challenges, supply chain and market disruption, as well as other retail operational inefficiencies.
The following are detailed reasons you need a procurement solution for your retail business:
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Intelligent procurement software helps you save costs and time.
When your operational processes are efficient and transparent, you can save costs by cutting out redundant and repetitive processes. Your procurement system should help simplify business transactions between you and your suppliers.
An intelligent procurement solution should automate your supply chain operations and reduce the costs of manual processes as well as data storage. It reduces direct and indirect costs incurred in the procurement process. With strategic payment options, your procurement team can benefit from early payment discounts or pay when due to maintaining strong vendor relationships, whilst saving costs and cycle time.
Also, manual procurement processes eat deep into productive hours that can be used in focusing on other important areas of the business. With an intelligent procurement solution, can focus on other retail operations with zero worries about your procurement process.
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It helps to identify ideal vendors and boost long-term supplier relationships.
A procurement solution identifies you to identify preferred vendors to do business with to reduce risks and build long-term, solid vendor relationships based on trust and merit. These strong relationships can lead to the creation of new products or markets that will be mutually beneficial.
How?
An intelligent procurement solution gives you insights into your vendors with analytics on key performance metrics. With these metrics, the solution pre-qualifies and shortlists vendors who align with your business goals and needs. These performance metrics will also be made visible to you in real-time to enhance your ability to replace non-compliant vendors.
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It ensures retail data visibility.
Storing vendor-related data manually is the least recommended and least effective option as the data is prone to errors or loss. Should this happen, you become blindsided. An intelligent procurement system avoids this by keeping track of vendor-related data and storing them securely in a central location. Even better, you can access this data remotely and offline.
Having access to data has become crucial for businesses across industries in a data-driven world. It is even more crucial for retail businesses as trends and events often shape the retail industry.
Every retail business requires an intelligent procurement solution that will give accurate and adequate data to help them make informed vendor-related decisions.
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It identifies leaks in your retail operations
An intelligent procurement system is a centralised platform that simplifies your procure-to-pay process with vendors. It is also a part of your overall retail systems. The solution helps you identify errors in your retail operations since it can be integrated with other systems. Also, procurement is compliance-driven. This means that with the right systems in place, you can make out errors and rectify them accordingly.
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It provides hands-on management with complete digitisation.
Think of a procurement solution as a procurement manager. It provides full-time management of procurement operations right from planning, to deployment and beyond. It streamlines purchasing and gives you real-time reporting. As said earlier, you can focus on other retail operations knowing that your procurement process has been made seamless and digitised.
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Your operations become more efficient
An intelligent procurement solution offers a more systematic approach to managing your vendor-related operations and data. By streamlining all of the processes involved and merging them into one system, your operations become faster and more efficient. Your goods and services will be ordered, paid for, and received without delays.
This contributes to the overall growth and success of your retail business.
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It optimises your supply chain
Intelligent procurement solutions allow you to obtain better pricing and purchasing terms through economies of scale. It also makes it easy to onboard suppliers and strategically source your products. Most solutions have vendor portals that make the onboarding process seamless. It is through these portals that vendor performance and compliance are tracked and subsequently, ideal vendors are identified. Also, vendors can make their product catalogues and price quotes available through these portals.
All of these ensure the continuity of operations despite market disruptions.
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It gives you total control over your spend
Long gone are the days when turning data into actionable data was only for big corporations. Now, businesses of all sizes require the right procurement solution to gain insights and control over their vendor-related spend. It enhances transparency across all procurement stages. You will be in the know of what goods are being purchased, when payments are due, and also how to eliminate unnecessary costs, reducing waste.
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It eliminates hidden procurement costs and invoice fraud
Intelligent procurement solutions automate three-matching features and spend controls that prevent misappropriation and hidden spending.
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Enjoy agility without extra in-house work.
With an intelligent procurement solution, you can adapt to changes driven by technology faster without making your employees do extra work by staying on top of things. Agility also lets you respond to disruptions and changing prices as soon as possible.
This puts your retail business at the forefront in your industry and allows you remain relevant.
All of the above benefits can only be experienced with the right procurement solution.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PROCUREMENT SOLUTION
There are certain features to look out for when selecting an intelligent procurement solution. They include;
- Purchase requisition
- Purchase order
- Purchase workflow
- Catalogue management
- Seamless approval flow
- User and vendor management
- Integration with other retail systems
- Audit log
- Analytics and Reporting
- Vendor Portal
Once you find a procurement solution that ticks all of these boxes, you have found the perfect solution.
Does the perfect procurement solution exist?
Yes, it does.
The Hidden Brains’ Procurement solution is a hands-on procurement management solution for retail businesses. It ticks all of the right boxes and is a must-have for a retail business that wants to grow in leaps in 2023 and beyond.
Send an email to us at [email protected] for enquiries.
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