This post will cover:

Clearly explanation about e-Procurement
What are the major differences between traditional procurement and e-Procurement?
What are the benefits and risks comes with e-Procurement?

Procurement has dramatically changed over the years, and we are now living in the new era of procurement management and you certainly had been heard about e-Procurement and its great benefits for your small business, medium or a large one.

1. What is e-Procurement?

According to The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), The definition of e-Procurement is:

“The combined use of electronic information and communications technology to enhance the links between customer and supplier, and with other value chain partners, and thereby to improve external and internal processes. e-Procurement is a key component of the B2B e-commerce”

In other words, e-procurement improves the relationship between the buyer and the supplier and strengthens the internal business process for both of them, in addition to that it offers significant cost savings and more profit.

2. What are the major differences between traditional procurement and e-Procurement?

To find suppliers:

In traditional procurement, The procurement officers have to search various suppliers’ catalogues, and may not know whether they offer discounts or not, then seek the suppliers over numerous phone calls, and it is usually in-person conversation-based or done through pen-and-paper.

In e-Procurement, via your laptop or smartphone, you'll be able to easily compare hundreds of online catalogues of different suppliers in the same time and communicate with the supplier online to confirm the availability and quantity, which makes the purchase order activity instant.

Purchase requisitions:

In traditional procurement, a physical note with the items that are required and their prices, on which approval is taken.

In e-Procurement, purchase requisitions are created and approved in the system itself(under specific pre-set conditions), making it less time-consuming.

Purchase Orders:

In traditional procurement, purchase orders are created and approved manually and then sent to the vendor through fax or couriers in any traditional formats.

In e-Procurement, purchase orders are created, approved and sent to vendors online within minutes and the vendor can confirm the same immediately.

Order Tracking:

In traditional procurement, Procurement officers need to contact the suppliers through phone calls to track the status of the order.

In e-Procurement, order tracking can be done online through an order tracking and management system.

3. What are the benefits of e-Procurement?

No suppliers problems anymore

Usually, it’s hard to find the perfect suppliers with the desired quality and at the right time, and if it happens you still can have some order management problems! but when shifting to e-Procurement, and using an e-procurement platform with a B2B marketplace, you can easily find hundreds of suppliers, compare them and pick the best one for you, then you can easily manage your order, all of this online without even needing to move out of your chair.

Expenses Reduction & More Savings

The main goal of the procurement department in any kind of business is to generate more savings for the company while getting the needed procurement in the desired quality, and you can get some savings with the traditional procurement approach but you’re missing a lot if you don’t use e-Procurement as, In the traditional approach, procurement is treated as a short-term process of purchasing, thus failing to bring significant savings and profit.

But with e-Procurement, you can easily achieve your financial goals with strategic sourcing of suppliers, better management, and visibility of spend, in addition to that, it saves you money by preventing duplicate spending, leveraging volume buying, and saving you costs associated with paper-based systems.

Error Free Procurement

With the implementation of e-procurement, it a lot easier for each department to conform to the company procurement standards without any wasting In addition to that, all the procurement documents will be online and thus easier to check for errors. Along with this, past orders are more easily referenced, meaning there’s a greater chance that your company can compare orders to ensure new ones are correct.

Increase in Transparency with Better Spend Management

e-Procurement offers access to more data, and through advanced analytics, the data is then aggregated, cleansed and classified which increase the spend visibility and allowing improved spend analysis, in addition to that you can also track your company’s spend behavior in real-time which help you to better manage and monitor your spending as well as track your savings.

Save time ! Do More Faster !

With the implementation of e-procurement, Procurement officers can get so much more done, as, In traditional procurement, procurement operations are managed through paperwork, sheets, phone calls, and in- person meetings, but when moving operations to an e-procurement platform, the source-to-pay processes become automated which make operations much faster, As the electronic handling of tasks supports and simplifies the purchasing process. The e-procurement process eliminates unnecessary activities, allowing you to focus on more valuable tasks

4. What are the risks comes with e-Procurement & How to Avoid them?

e-Procurement is a great solution for your company but this comes with some risks:

Security Risk: with the implementation of e-procurement and doing business online, the security of your transactions and business information may be in danger.

Cost Increasing: the great benefits of e-Procurement are not free in most cases, as e- Procurement platforms usually cost a lot for subscription fees.

Those risks must be taken into consideration, as the security of your company’s transactions is very important, in addition to that you maybe are not ready to afford any additional cost now to subscribe to an e-Procurement Platform.

How to avoid this risks?

By adopting e-Procure in your business you will avoid most and all of those risks.

e-Procure Blockchain B2B Platform, is the first B2B platform in the world incorporating an advanced cloud system for procurement management and integrated B2B marketplace.

Subscription to e-Procure is completely free.

e-Procure is built with Blockchain technology that provides complete encryption for your company information and transactions and ensures that nobody can ever access your data without your permission.

e-Procure has everything you will need to communicate with suppliers, buyers and business experts directly through a decentralized system to close deals and sign smart contracts freely from anywhere and anytime.