Hackett

For 2020, Procurement Puts Cost, Technology, & Analytics On the Front Burner as it Strives to Elevate Strategic Advisor Role - Seite 2

The research found significant room for improvement of procurement technology meeting business expectations. Many recent procurement technology initiatives fell short of expectations, in part due to the lack of a comprehensive digital transformation plan, poor change management, and skills and talent deficiencies. Only one of the five procurement core automation technologies – best of breed solutions – met or exceeded business expectations more than 60% of the time. This points to the fact that procurement must focus not only on technology enablement but also end-to-end value streams to drive results within the enterprise.

Legacy procurement applications are quickly being eclipsed by next-generation cloud-based systems, which are expected to see nearly 25% growth in 2020, the research found. Robotic process automation is also expected to see strong growth. While more than 64% of procurement organizations have piloted RPA, only 9% have done large-scale deployments. But the study also found that a full 50% of all RPA implementations have fallen short in terms of their ability to realize business objectives.

Analytics and information management are a key focus for procurement at present, with more than 50% of organizations working on improving data quality and master data management, The Hackett Group’s research found. This, alongside investing in talent and analytics skills, are essential first steps in developing strong analytics capabilities.

Organizational resistance to change is the top hurdle preventing procurement transformation, the research found, followed closely by lack of critical skills by procurement staff.

According to The Hackett Group Principal & Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader Chris Sawchuk, “Historically, procurement’s major challenges have been funding and resource inadequacies as well as a lack of commitment from enterprise executives for transformation. But those are not as pressing issues today. In fact, many of the hurdles we’re seeing are now areas that procurement can change and improve, like critical skill deficiencies in analytics & modeling, technology and strategic thinking as well as overall data related issues.”