5 Advantages of eProcurement Software to Your Business

Nikunj Dudhat

Senior Writer

The accurate and timely procurement of raw material, ancillary items, or equipment is crucial for any manufacturing business. In order to run production smoothly, firms have to ensure that stocks remain at optimum levels at all times. Thus, procurement was once considered the next logical step in managing a firm’s supply chain. Today most businesses have digitized the process of procurement, with 68% of B2B buyers purchasing goods online.

Looking for eProcurement Software? Check out SoftwareSuggest’s list of the best eprocurement software solutions.

For a long time, businesses have struggled with numerous disruptions in their supply chain, primarily due to gaps in communication and lack of oversight. However, with the prevalence of B2B e-Procurement software, businesses can steer clear of these disruptions, even during the ongoing pandemic. Before we dive into the capabilities of such software, let us take a look at what electronic B2B procurement entails and the advantages of using software for online procurement.

What is B2B eProcurement?

Electronic procurement involves finding, ordering, and purchasing the goods or services you need through the internet. Such solutions offer professionals the chance to view details about all products listed through visual catalogs. These catalogs typically contain detailed information about a product starting from its composition, pricing, expected delivery time, and more.

e-Procurement software solutions help simplify and shorten the stock selection process while automating purchasing and payments. They help create crucial partnerships with multiple suppliers and vendors. With the use of an integrated platform, firms can easily compare the offerings of different suppliers and choose the best among them depending on their pricing, features, and company’s needs. They also help in digital documentation and invoicing, reducing the amount of manual error and paperwork needed. There are several other benefits of e-Procurement solutions which are discussed in our next section.

Advantages of eProcurement Software

e-Procurement solutions brain a range of benefits to firms using them, which are enumerated below.

1. Reduced costs

According to a study by the  University of Jakarta on eProcurement software implementations, organizations that move to electronic procurement experience the following benefits:

  • Reduced off-contract spend by 64%.
  • Reduced prices by 7.3% for spending brought back onto the contract
  • Reduced requisition-to-order cycles by 66%.
  • Reduced requisition-to-order costs by 58%
  • Increased total spend under the management of procurement group by 20%

Additionally, there are indirect benefits like inculcating best practices into the purchase process, the institutionalization of the processes, reducing dependency on individuals, increased collaboration with suppliers, transparency, auditing, and so on.

2. Better Transparency on Expenses

E-procurement software brings much-needed transparency and automation to your purchasing system. With the centralization of supplier information, purchase data, and integration with ERP, the purchasing dashboard becomes more uniform and improves the visibility of organizational leadership. It’s easy to validate and keep track of the following:

  • Supplier shortlisting process
  • Evaluation methodology
  • Initial quotes
  • Negotiation tactics and outcome
  • Purchases orders
  • Requisition and approval mechanism.
  • Payments, taxes, and other information
  • Compliance with the contracts/obligations

With such granular visibility, transactional issues that are hampering the managers to achieve organization objectives surface, and the trend becomes evident over a period of time. Insights & objective data pave the way for tackling the issues head-on, and small incremental steps gradually lead to a more significant transformation.

3. Improved Productivity

According to the study quoted above, eProcurement software solutions reduce the procurement cycle time by more than 50%; you can bring all your purchase activities under the control of the procurement team by including more and more categories and establishing catalogs and rate contracts. As a result, the supplier-buyer relations get a new high with increased transparency and agility along with the long-term visibility; the procurement department can focus on strategic categories and add value where it matters most.

4. Control and scalability

E-procurement software helps you standardize your procurement/approval workflow for each transaction; the supplier database is centralized, compliance, audits, and legal issues become easy to handle. Your contract with the suppliers is centralized, making it easy for you to track the supplier performance. The deviation becomes easy to control, scaling the standardized process becomes easy as your organization grows.

5. Innovation and e-procurement

Many renowned companies in recent times have used outsourcing as the key to their innovation. Airtel is one such good example. They have outsourced their technology function to IBM and are able to focus on marketing and brand innovation. The key to this engagement is transparency in the supplier relationship. Similarly, Apple Inc is able to transfer its manufacturing to Chinese suppliers and focus on design innovations. The core of these activities is innovation in the supply chain and e-sourcing, which enabled these companies to take their offering to the next level.

Now that you know about the advantages of e-Procurement solutions, it is time to check out the latest and best digital procurement software available in the market today.

Best eProcurement Software in the Market in 2024

1. Procurify

Procurify software

This cloud-based solution is ideal for businesses of every size. Procurify integrates seamlessly with well-known ERP systems like Netsuite, Xero, QuickBooks, and Dynamics Sage. It supports multiple industries like pharmaceuticals, IT, non-profits, healthcare, and many more.

Procurify stores all app and messaging-based information in its centralized repository and allows users to utilize several support options like digital form submissions, online knowledgebase, etc. It houses an Amazon Business punchout, allowing users to browse items from the ‘order request’ page of Amazon.com directly. The items added can be submitted for separate approval processes with details like code, colors, or categories assigned to items in a batch. The application allows for customizable approval and purchasing workflows and offers real-time budget tracking, much to the delight of firms.

2. Oracle Procurement Cloud

Oracle Procurement Cloud

This e-Procurement software is extremely popular among industries like healthcare, education, communication, and automotive. Oracle Procurement Cloud is rich with features like procurement guides, supplier portal, supplier qualification, contract management, and more.

Oracle’s e-Procurement software helps you standardize, streamline and automate source to processes and daily transactions via cloud. It offers personalized and actionable data cards called ‘infolets’ that summarise information about specific stock items. Infolets can be configured to be displayed on the application’s homepage and can be very useful while acting on critical KPIs.

Oracle Procurement Cloud offers pre-approved contract templates which help users following the latest industry best practices. Local or country-specific information can also be translated to your local language and customized as per your business standards.

3. GEP SMART

Gep Smart e-Procurement software

GEP SMART is a cloud-based software that has been used extensively in the manufacturing, hospitality, retail, and energy sectors. Created primarily to cater to the needs of medium and large corporations, this e-Procurement software solution comprises dedicated modules to manage expenses, suppliers, savings, purchase orders, and much more.

GEP SMART is available for both Mac iOS and Microsoft Windows devices and features a powerful AI that monitors expenses, invoices, and anomalies. The software supports multiple services, including supply market intelligence, strategic sourcing, cost recovery, tail-spend management, and invoice auditing. Additionally, it allows for cloud-based auctioning and RFx tools which helps monitor supplier performance, scorecards, and category-specific metrics for stock.

4. Coupa Procurement

Coupa Procurement software

This unique e-Procurement software is highly popular in the continent of North America. It offers AI-based expense classification and helps you make better decisions by highlighting the risks involved with a transaction, credit records, and transaction history. It also provides suggestions to optimize expenses and find the best supplier for an order.

Coupa Procurement offers real-time dashboards that offer instant visibility into the progress and status of each order. The software can be customized to factor in evaluation criteria, award scenarios, and business constraints which add the required flexibility and accuracy to the bidding process. The solution can also provide scores to suppliers based on the risks involved and offer several similar health indicators to improve your purchasing choices. Coupa Procurement also uses machine learning and AI to detect frauds and errors made in business expenditures.

5. SAP Ariba

SAP Ariba software

SAP Ariba is a SaaS-based procurement software that uses AI to streamline the invoicing and procurement processes in a firm. It has helped several corporations migrate effortlessly to cloud and allows buyers to collaborate with suppliers while requesting quotes through instant messaging or email. It offers task prioritization based on SLAs, automatic routing, KPI tracking, and customizable dashboards that reduce your workload considerably.

SAP Ariba comes with a mobile app that lets users search catalogs, monitor progress, and send approvals on the go. Users can also create, track, withdraw, approve or deny requisitions while viewing their attachments on their smartphones. Additionally, the SAP Ariba Catalog helps automate verification and displays suppliers already approved by the system.

Conclusion

It is crucial for any business today to choose a procurement solution that reduces workload and simplifies workflows. Thus it is best to choose a solution that integrates with your existing systems to improve their efficacy. Good e-Procurement software can positively transform your supply chain, automate several tasks, and improve your oversight over the ordering and bidding process. Thus with the right tools by your side, you can have greater control over the procurement process to streamline your production, invoicing, and delivery while saving on time and resources.

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