Modern CPOs on their way to Smart Procurement

Last week, the Ivalua team attended an interesting CPO Round Table organized by the CIPS MENA in Dubai on the theme “Enabling Smart Procurement Today.”

It is not a surprise that the responsibilities of today’s CPOs are evolving fast compared to the ones they had in the past years. Traditionally, the CPO’s first priority was to ensure the optimization and reduction of costs. Today, they are tackling new priorities like risk management, supplier compliance, actionable insights.

What we can notice is that the application of Smart procurement technologies is becoming key for them to think strategically, act quickly and take the right decisions at the right moment in a permanently evolving environment.

The question is then How can Smart Procurement help the Modern CPO to be successful and manage today’s uncertainty?

1. Making Insights Actionable

The modern CPO can use Smart Procurement technology to address the poor quality of data and lack of integration. Platforms can now pull together and merge relevant information from diverse sources into one place, including external financial figures, internal performance scorecards and risk. A unified data model allows intelligent technologies, such as AI, to analyse large data volumes for trends, generating actionable insights and bringing them to the fingertips of CPOs.

2.Increased Capacity for Strategic Thinking

Many CPOs and their teams will also be spending too much time on operational activities and manual processes that add limited value to the business, yet distract from more important responsibilities. If procurement is to do more, it must be more efficient and free up capacity for higher value activities that support new strategic priorities. Digitizing the source-to-pay process eliminates paper, unnecessary phone calls / emails and improves transparency for all stakeholders.

3.Compliance in Times of Uncertainty

There has never been so much uncertainty and complexity for organisations to deal with. Whether it’s geopolitical events like Brexit, or regulatory hurdles like GDPR – CPOs play a vital role ensuring compliance in an agile manner that causes minimal disruption. When it comes to compliance, smart procurement can help CPOs keep on top of regulations and work with suppliers to make sure they’re also toeing the line. But for this to happen, CPOs need full visibility of suppliers.

4.More Intelligence, Quicker Decisions

Smart procurement technologies allow the modern CPO to make informed decisions and operate intelligently even when juggling other business priorities. Automation, unified data and a 360-degree view of suppliers ensure smart procurement gives the modern CPO the tools required to monitor risk, innovate and ensure compliance.

Risk factors, regulatory changes, and greater demand for innovation are obstacles that are here to stay but with the help of smart procurement technology, they are issues that the modern CPO will be able to tackle with minimal fuss.

 Author Yasmine Brisson, EMEA Marketing Manager, Ivalua