What Is E-Procurement And Why Does It Matter?

Wondering what is e-Procurement and what is an e-Procurement system? 

Eprocurement and e-procurement systems essentially mean the same. E-procurement is the process that is used for procurement optimization with the help of digital solutions. It involves using digital technology to enable buying of necessary goods and services by a business. E-procurement stakeholders include the approver, the purchasing department, the end-users, and the accounting and finance departments. It is critical to note that e-procurement is a B2B process and does not apply to a B2C process.

Creating and maintaining a competitive edge is necessary to outpace the market competition. Investing in e-procurement analysis software is an efficient way to achieve this. Moreover, e-Procurement systems offer tailored solutions, empowering stakeholders to make efficient and prompt decisions.

E-procurement Vs. E-purchasing

E-procurement and e-purchasing might sound the same but are different. Here are the major differences between the two.

• E-procurement focuses on short-term goals such as ensuring the goods and services have come at the right cost, time, and are of approved quality. On the other hand, e-purchasing focuses on long-term goals such as focusing on business goals to be better than the competition.

• E-procurement is about ensuring that the item’s quality meets the requirements. In this, the cost comes secondary. However, in e-purchasing, the focus is on the price and cost rather than the value of the goods and services.

• E-procurement is about sourcing and understanding specific business requirements. E-purchasing, on the flip side, is about the actual process of buying that includes ordering and ensuring payments have been made.

• E-procurement is based on strengthening relationships so that better relationships are built with the suppliers. However, e-purchasing is all about the transaction aspect whereby not much focus is on enhancing and improving relationships.

What Are The E-Procurement Forms?

Now, you might have come across the term ‘e-procurement forms”. What are they really? And what are their different types? Find out:

E-informing

This form of e-procurement is about determining whether a supplier is suitable for the needs of the business. Information such as whether the supplier can deliver the requirement, which further determines the supplier’s finance-related information.

E-sourcing

E-sourcing is when during the first stage of the procurement process, you are using the Internet to find your suppliers. This occurs when you are putting information together about the suppliers you want to build a relationship with.

E-tendering

E-tendering deals with the process of screening suppliers before selecting them and choosing them as suppliers to do business with. It involves the process of sending a request for information (RFI) and a request for proposal (RFP) to determine whether the supplier is suitable or not.

E-reverse auctions

E-reverse auctions allow businesses to buy goods and services from a range of suppliers. These suppliers can be known to the business beforehand but it can also involve dealing with unknown suppliers.

E-MRO and Web-based ERP

Web-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) and e-ordering are forms of e-procurement that involve the creation and approval of purchasing requisitions. That is, purchase orders can be placed and the goods and services ordered can be received with the help of the Internet.

What Are The Benefits Of E-Procurement? 

E-procurement offers umpteen benefits. Here’s how eprocurement can be a boon to businesses.

Increased Productivity

With e-procurement systems, lesser resources are required as they stave off the manual paperwork, rework, and mistakes. The procurement personnel can be freed from regular tasks such as drafting RFQs and RFPs and processing low-value transactions. Further, e-procurement systems offer more time to focus on strategic sourcing projects and help improve supplier relationships.

Cost Savings

Automating processes that are effort-intensive enables direct savings, decreasing the need for the human element. e-Auctions curb the costs of sourcing high- or low-volume items - it is fast, effective, and cheaper compared to traditional quotes. E-procurement systems further ensure cost-cutting by managing supplier data and performance, accelerating sourcing events, and maintaining contracts.

Better Control

When processes aren’t centralized, they are a mess and all over the place. With e-procurement, you can rest assured that you have better control on how you are spending your capital resources and how you are allocating those resources. This increase in control enables companies to better drive their business.

Efficient Monitoring 

E-procurement allows businesses to track and be on top of things at all times. Tracking becomes difficult in the manual procurement process where proper information won’t be available as soon as you need it. E-procurement systems enable tracking of the purchases and access to information whenever required.

Better Transparency

E-procurement allows aggregation, cleansing, and investigation of the spend data, which can be elucidated on an easy-to-read dashboard. The system enables analyses on real-time, reliable insights to support decision-making and various sourcing decisions.

Further, centralized monitoring of transactions in the P2P process allows complete reporting on items purchased, requisitions, payments made, and orders processed.

Time-saving

You can save considerable time when you opt for e-procurement systems. Processes that took hours to complete now take only minutes thus offering employees more time to improve their business processes. This time-saving advantage with e-procurement systems allows businesses to become increasingly efficient and make significant strides.

Endnote

Enhanced worldwide connectivity and the tech adoption have considerably improved the volume of business run through the Internet. With the COVID-19 impact, every business that can be performed distantly is now online.

As e-procurement systems continue to step up, less complicated procurement processes including processing purchase orders or finding suppliers will be automated. Furthermore, companies are likely to outsource these processes to focus on more complicated or strategic procurement tasks and to decreases costs.