As the world of technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, many businesses are struggling to keep up with the times. Even an SAP Ariba consultant will tell you that in the business world it is less affordable to remain unchanged than it is to transform to a digital solution.
Here’s the deal.
The world is changing, whether we want it to or not. Oldgone are the days when it was appropriate to keep everything written down in a ledger book. Although a human being is capable of doing extraordinary things, with the help of technology we are unstoppable.
Source-to-Pay Technology
Most businessesother organizations have a procurement process that they go by in order to maintain the financial health of the company. The main goal is to spend a significantly less amount of money than the business takes in so that there is a substantial profit. In many cases, this is easier said than done.
Source-to-pay software can help a business to:
- Track spending
- Obtain dependable sources
- Forcast savings
- Negotiate contracts
- Find lower prices
The source-to-pay strategy for every company will be different from place to place. The needs of one business will be different than the next, however, the software in place can be programmed to facilitate the needs of each businesshave regard for the tiniest of details.
There are various steps in the typical source-to-pay process that are crucial for the health of the organization. For example, if a company takes the time to first plan out the entire strategy before anything else happens, they have a clear vision of where the money will be spenthow much it will cost for everything. The team can brainstormconsider the best ways for the flow of the money to go in order to bring back an even higher return.
- Planning
- Sourcing
- Buying
- Paying
These are the basic steps that every business should implement in their procurement process so that they can get the most out of every penny that is spentkeep track of all of the transactions that take place.
With the help of source-to-pay technology, each one of these steps can be facilitated in a manner beyond the capacity of a team without technology could do.
Let’s break this down.
The Planning Stage
It is not a secret that one of the best things an organization can do for its health is to plan things out in advancehave a backup plan in place so that if one thing goes south, another plan is right there to keep things going.
In a normal planning environment, without the help of technology, a group of people will get togetherbrainstorm wherehow to move forward with every step between sourcingpaying for the goodsservices bought.
Having a digital platform that is centralized in the company will help to speed up the planning processpoint out the best possible paths to take in order to get the most out of each step.
The Sourcing Stage
Some companies already have a great selection of sources that they turn to when it is time to purchase the things that they need to conduct business. However, anybody that has ever spent time trying to discover the bestmost trustworthy sources for business knows that it can be a difficult task.
The difference between sourcing vendors manuallyby automation is that when you use software to locatesecure great sources you can allow the platform to sift through literally millions of potential sourcesfind the ones that are the best match for the needs of the company.
Effective sources need to be:
- Trustworthy
- Dependable
- Reliable
- Cost-efficient
- Ready to go at any time
Depending on a limited amount of potential sources is not a good way to stay healthyproductive. With the help of a software application that is designed to facilitate effective spending practices, you can discover tons of reputable sources that are ready to deliver.
The Buying Stage
Once all of the sources necessary to conduct businesses are establishedready to go it will be time to make the orders that are necessary for the company.
If the company is in need of millions of items from various vendors, buying the stuff might be a bit complicated. Although there are talented procurement gurus out there that know their stuff, however, none of them have the capacity to understand millions of items at the same time that need to be ordered from different vendors.
Even if there were only hundreds of items from various vendors, a typical human mind does not have the ability to compute all of the needs at one timefacilitate an order while double-checking for contractual agreementsprice deals that have been negotiated.
Powerful software that was built for procurement will:
- Trackmanage contracts
- Maintain negotiated prices
- Alert both parties of transaction issues
- Record each transaction
One of the issues that businesses run into is that when the sourcing happens there will be contracts involved that specify an amount of a product or service if it is ordered in bulk or a stipulated number in the agreement.
For instance, if the company is purchasing 700 pairs of shoes for a discounted price of 30% off every pair when it comes time to pay for the purchase if the checkout for the company is not aware of the discount deal they will charge the full amount. You can imagine that 30% more than bargained for is a price that probably could have been obtained cheaper somewhere else.
In any event, the software has the ability to catch snags such as thissave the company a lot of money. In many cases, mistakes like this go undetectedthe company loses a substantial amount of money on an ongoing basis.
The Paying Stage
In order to finalize the procurement cycle for the month, or whatever increment the company works with, all of the vendors must be paidsatisfied…unless there is some sort of credit deal in place.
In any event, some of the larger companies out there have thousands of vendorsspend millions of dollars. What better way to keep track of every penny spentmake sure that every single vendor is p[aind on time, every time than to implement a solution that uses AI to pay all invoices, send out receipts,keep track of each deal?
There is plenty of room for human error when it comes to paying billskeeping track of the funds that are used to pay the bills.
The Age of Technology
Wherever the business stands in the way of opinion regarding digital transformation, the rest of the world is evolvingtechnology is beginning to dominate every aspect of the modern life of human beings.
Banks, courts, educational systems, motor vehicle departments,everything else that runs the country have all transformed from the old way of doing business to the new way. It won’t be long before it is mandatory for everybody to have a connection to the internet in order to even legally exist.
As the world continues to rely moremore upon technology, the organizations that refuse to move forward will eventually die awaybe disconnected from the business world. In any event, any business that wants to continue to exist that uses a source-to-pay strategy to do business will have to go digital, otherwise, they will not be able to conduct business because the business world will be digital.
