Organisation's First Steps in Digital Procurement
The Situation
Charity had onerous steps for buying routine, low value purchases and needed to release key colleagues from admin tasks.
The main ‘purchase to pay’ cycle was undertaken by the requisitioner, meaning that high-value roles including specialist researchers and scientists were tied up in the administration of raising purchase orders.
The current system made it difficult and laborious to find routine items such as laboratory consumables and resulted in a lot of time spent for very low value purchases.
The Task
Understand the business requirements for a change in procurement practises and review the market for available options.
The Action / Approach
The first step was to speak with key stakeholders and understand the business requirement. This was undertaken face to face wherever possible.
The second was to engage with the market and source available options, including getting demos of available software platforms and indicative prices.
The insight gained from these steps was collated into a feasibility study to present to the board, which outlined the available options and the recommended next steps.
The Result
The organisation was able to choose a route to implement a new eProcurement platform that suited the individual requirements of the charity and was compliant with public sector procurement regulations.
This freed up admin time for key users, enabling them to focus on their main job functions.
