Choosing the right procurement app is crucial for managing your company’s spending efficiently. But with so many options out there, how do you decide? This article provides 10 essential tips to guide you in selecting the optimal procurement apps for your business needs. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to upgrade, these practical recommendations will set you on the path to smart, streamlined purchasing.
- Define Your Requirements
Clearly defining your organization’s unique procurement requirements is a critical first step to appropriately narrow your platform choices. Gather a cross-functional team including key stakeholders from finance, legal, IT, operations, and end-users representing various business units. Discuss the key purchasing processes your new app will need to manage – will it cover direct item purchasing, RFX and bid processes, contract negotiation and drafting, contract analysis, vendor management, invoice payments, reporting, or others? Within those, pinpoint what levels of requisition and approval hierarchy, automation, and self-service capabilities are mandatory versus nice-to-have.
Next, examine procurement spend – break this down by business unit and categories like MRO, indirect goods, services, and direct materials to align the platform to relevant volumes, levels of complexity, and segmentation. Setting precise parameters on your must-have functionality, integration needs, and purchasing analytics requirements guides you in setting minimum viable criteria for optimal app alternatives that fulfill current and future business needs.
- Consider Customizability
Customizability should be a key factor in your procurement platform decision. Assess how flexible the system is to tailor to your changing processes and policies over time. Solutions built on low-code or no-code architecture allow for more point-and-click configuration to workflows, approval chains, fields, integration touchpoints and more as needs emerge. The ability to add optional modules or apps for added functionality like contract management, strategic sourcing and supplier management also enables scaling up specific capabilities right-sized to your requirements.
In the platform demo, validate what out-of-the-box tools support ease of customization via drop-down menus, process builders and template libraries versus heavy reliance on vendor professional services. Certainly, deeper customization increases complexity in the implementation phase with lengthier timeframes so find the right balance and factor both IT support availability and business budget for the initiative. Prioritize platforms with agility for modifications aligned to internal purchasing policy changes, new system touchpoints, user interface improvements, and fresh innovations so your solution evolves in lockstep with business transformation.
- Weigh Scalability
When evaluating procurement platform options, carefully scrutinize system scalability in line with your growth plans. Review each vendor’s existing customer base and determine if they support enterprises both at your current scale and 3x your projected size within the next five years.
Assess the workflow volume and throughput the system architecture has successfully demonstrated – are other current customers running similar yearly user, transaction, contract and purchase order volumes to your forecasted figures? How frequently has the vendor needed to execute platform migrations for customers as they substantially scale, and how seamless is that transition? Furthermore, discuss how their platform API layer and integration infrastructure positions you for flexible connectivity to upcoming business systems in your technology roadmap like new ERP, HRIS and managed travel modules.
- Verify Security
Vetting platform security is imperative before entrusting suppliers, contracts, and purchase transaction data on any system. Ensure end-to-end protections including data at rest and in motion encryption, granular access control levels for users and groups down to read-only or edit restrictions, robust data backup, and key policies like SOC 2 compliance via independent audit reports for assurance. Especially when relying on a vendor-hosted cloud environment, mandate regular penetration tests, infrastructure patching schedules, and formal incident response planning. Validate security expertise first since breaches from simple oversights permanently damage an operation through IP loss, legal repercussions and relationship implications from the supplier to customer level on every procurement interaction.
- Compare Pricing Models
Pricing varies widely so model out total cost of ownership for each option under consideration. Some charge per user, transaction volume, or platform modules. Others invoice customers based on % spend under management or a flat monthly enterprise fee. There may also be implementation, training, and support costs so identify all recurring and one-time charges. Assess where available volume discounts apply. Create apples-to-apples comparisons.
- Review Implementation & Adoption Support
The system with the richest functionality won’t deliver value if users don’t actually adopt it. Thus, seek platforms with robust change management baked into the rollout. Ongoing training, communication plans, self-service portals, and help desk access are key adoption drivers. Similarly, the implementation approach must align workflows, migrate data, configure system-to-system interfaces, etc. Validate each vendor’s methodology here.
- Compare Vendor Service & Support
Clarify the vendor’s technical support and customer success models. Available resources like knowledge bases, support tickets, community forums and uptime SLAs impact productive usage. Furthermore, how strategic is their customer success program? You need a partner invested in boosting your solution ROI via data analysis, training reinforcement and maximizing unique capabilities. Validate strengths here.
- Prioritize Platform Insights
Smart analytics separate leading options. Evaluate each system’s real-time dashboards, flexible reporting, and drill-down. Can you track KPIs like contract coverage rates, cycle times, discounted purchases, and demographic trends in transactions? How intuitive and visual are the insights? Which data visualization tools are natively integrated? The solution should spotlight optimization opportunities via strong analytics.
- Check System Openness & Connectivity
Determine how readily the platform ecosystem syncs with peripheral procurement technologies for a unified environment. API openness is crucial for connecting sourcing, inventory, ERP, payments and other purchasing tools you already use. Pre-built integrations and connectors accelerate this while custom development may be required in other cases. Ensure flexibility to prevent isolation.
- Ask Peers for Recommendations
Finally, consult peer professionals already using procurement platforms. Survey them on pros and cons from real customer perspectives. Explore which solution attributes drive the highest user buy-in and adoption levels. Their transparent feedback further narrows options to support an optimal selection tailored to even your nuanced needs.
Conclusion
While assessing procurement platforms is complex, following this defined 10-step methodology makes the selection process vastly more effective. Prioritizing essential requirements, pricing, security, service and adoption functionality leads you to the ideal fit. Taking a methodical approach ensures you match the right platform to your organization’s purchasing needs and event take care of tail spend management and scale into the future. Leverage these tips for easier decision making and long-term value. Then execute source-to-contract processes seamlessly!