How far along is digitization and networking of business processes in buying today? And how relevant are these topics among buyers? Onventis surveyed selected businesses about the relevance of digital networks in procurement. The result: a large majority expects clear market advantages and wants to increase investment in this area.
Open, neutral, and uncurated – which buyer wouldn’t want a platform that developed itself agilely, dynamically, and freely? The importance of “Networking in Procurement” is demonstrated in the study conducted by Cloud Procurement Network Onventis in collaboration with Hochschule Niederrhein/University of Applied Sciences and the Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME).
“Multi-stage trade will become less important in the near future,” forecasts Prof. Willi Muschinski, study director and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences. The automation of procurement processes as well as uninterrupted networking of buyers and suppliers will play a decisive role in maintaining competitiveness, especially for SMEs.
“In our study, we examine the current situation in the procurement market in order to pass on important trends and recommendations for networks in B2B procurement to decision-makers in purchasing,” explains Onventis CEO Frank Schmidt. Students at Hochschule Niederrhein surveyed 438 decision-makers in procurement. Purchasing managers were the largest group, represented with 33 %. Almost half of those surveyed work in larger mid-sized enterprises.
In general, digital procurement networks are considered to be of great importance to the digitization strategy of the company: 83 % of those polled consider procurement networks to be important. For more than half, procurement networks are very important.
In the age of digitization, one thing is clear: global networks will shape the future. Without networks, no future; without collaborative platforms, no networks. Amazon, Google, Uber et. al. have proven that the age of traditional on-premise solutions has passed its peak. Networked platforms in the cloud are the trend. It is therefore unsurprising that the willingness to invest is relatively high for those who were surveyed: 83 % of all respondents want to increase investment in digital procurement networks. Almost half have already budgeted for the investment. Ergo: well-networked enterprises will continue to develop their advantage in the future.
The trend is toward agile networks and collaboration. “Without electronic networks, approval processes take significantly longer and are therefore more cost intensive,” Frank Schmidt explains, while emphasizing that “the service procurement platforms' bene-fit is primarily to repeatedly simplify coordination processes so that collabo-rative partners can achieve better performance in the market through concerted behaviours.”
According to the survey, businesses already partially employ digital processes to optimize procurement, but there is an extremely large backlog in penetration and automation. Collabo-rative processes between procurement departments and their suppliers have been established, but often consistent digital support is missing.
