Procurement has migrated from the transactional to the strategic edge of the contemporary organisation and usually manages and directs the total expenditure from within a centralised framework.
In this scenario the choice of enabling technology plays an important role as it can develop or limit the scope of the overall effectiveness of procurement, Elmo Erasmus, Chief Technology Officer at WebPortunities, tells SmartProcurement.
E-Procurement solutions offer an enormous time and cost saving facility, says Erasmus.
One of the benefits of an effective on-line procurement system is significant time saving in the sourcing or tender process, as can be seen from Foskor, Phalaborwa, data comparison alongside.
One notes that compared with the usual time consuming tender process, enormous advantages have been enjoyed by Foskor in this complex process which involved 1000 line items across 20 suppliers.
To reduce 160 hours of intense tender processing and replace it with 10 hours of supervision is an enormous saving of 90% in time and a similar increase in the effectiveness of the personnel involved.
One can also imagine suppliers’ relief in quickly moving through the process and not spending 20 working days – almost a full month – if nothing else comes in the way.
For more information on procurement technologies, contact WebPortunities‘ Elmo Erasmus at elmo@taranawa.com
