Holger Dermann, Project Manager eBusiness & Services at the Hoffmann Group, explains his forecast for 2024 in a short expert article. Important topics such as skills shortage, Supply Chain Act, and digitalization will continue to strongly challenge companies in the coming years. Companies must take countermeasures early on.
Skills Shortage in Purchasing
The skills shortage runs through all company departments and remains one of the greatest operational challenges, including for purchasing. Companies are struggling with a smaller pool of applicants and also have to compensate for more frequent staff changes. Great potential lies in e-procurement platforms, which relieve staff through digital and automated processes. In this way, tied-up resources can be easily reallocated so that employees can use their time for strategic tasks. Digital media are overall indispensable to integrate new staff into operational processes as quickly as possible. In order to be attractive as an employer for the younger generation, digitalization is a decisive factor.
Increasing Productivity as an Answer to Margin Pressure
Every company must engage in cost optimisation. This makes price negotiations more demanding. They are additionally complicated by rising raw material prices. This creates high margin pressure, which will continue in 2024. Companies must therefore get the maximum out of their margins. This can only be achieved through process optimisation via automation and the resulting increase in productivity. In the purchasing department, this could be the introduction of an e-procurement platform. As long as the ordering process is on paper and the goods and price overviews take place in hard-to-update catalogue tomes, too many employees are trapped in overly time-consuming and therefore cost-intensive processes. And ultimately, excessive process costs melt away any possible margin.
Realising Fast Savings Potential Through Digitalisation
Companies must bring transparency into their purchasing processes and the flow of goods, especially in the area of C-parts, in order to identify optimal savings potential. Maverick buying is one of the greatest enemies of strategically optimised purchasing behaviour, because employees order materials uncontrollably, bypassing purchasing. This obscures the actual demand and makes strategies for savings potential almost impossible. Companies must show clear paths, for example, via digital tools that steer purchasing behaviour within departments into predefined channels. In e-procurement systems, clear price lists ensure that materials are always purchased with the best price-performance ratio.
Conclusion: Mastering Challenges with Smart Technologies
Whether skills shortage, cost reductions, or margin pressure, procurement management faces some major challenges this year. But these do not have to be a bogeyman, because they can be solved quickly and cost-efficiently with the help of smart technologies such as e-procurement platforms, process optimisation, and digitalisation of purchasing processes.
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