Procurement is vital for keeping the global economy running in a world influenced by supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures, and continuing geopolitical shocks. The procurement of today, in its current phase of evolution, plays a unique role in future-proofing business and is absolutely critical in determining the long-term success of a business. Procurement leaders are faced with the ongoing necessity of transforming their role beyond that of a support function that manages tactical and operational work. As we have often said, procurement urgently needs to rise further in what the craft offers and deliver organizational-wide value beyond driving down costs and delivering only savings.

How will procurement evolve to cater to a changing business landscape if organizations that historically struggled cannot integrate strategy into the function?

Category strategy automation is the answer

Category strategy automation leverages the power of machine learning (AI) technology to integrate human expertise into the function and derive decision-making rules by precisely and quickly analyzing thousands of category strategies.

Category strategy automation is essential in facilitating next-generation procurement vision in today’s complex business environment. Enabling and equipping organizations to embrace and benefit from automation empowers today’s digitally savvy category managers to allocate more time towards developing procurement strategies that deliver impact and foster better collaboration with stakeholders. In addition, category strategy automation is helping category managers and procurement leaders address business requirements and identify key market challenges efficiently.

Strategic procurement strategies are enabling better outcomes across multiple industries. The time is now to automate category strategies and refocus procurement’s effort towards tactical, operational, and strategic thinking, not exclusively one or the other. All three aspects are stronger together.

Category strategy automation delivers solid organization-wide results from top to bottom. By freeing up more capacity for strategic procurement and not burdening category managers with operational or tactical facets of the function, potential opportunities previously overseen are being uncovered, and workflows are delivering more value. There’s also less room for Human error and mistakes – a benefit we can all agree provides end-to-end value in procurement.

Does the automation of category strategy creation enable strategic procurement?

Yes, the automation of category strategy creation enables strategic procurement. However, it is not just a buzzword in procurement, as they often are. In its pure form: strategic procurement happens when good research and preparation create opportunity, which is what we mean by procurement delivering value beyond savings.

Maintaining what was done in the past and keeping out-of-date processes alive using the same passé methods no longer delivers real value. Instead, strategic procurement software that automates category strategy creation has proven to be the backbone of the modern, agile procurement team.

So research, analyze and determine new strategies that are not just copied/pasted from last year. Let that be your foundation to focus and guide other transactional tools so that every strategy is seamlessly implemented.

Today’s procurement requires category strategy automation to elevate the function into its next phase of evolution. Take a moment to reflect on strategic procurement’s role in future-proofing business and research Cirtuo’s procurement software solution to see if we can help your business become strategic in procurement. In any case, feel free to book a procurement software demo or check out our frequently asked questions page.

If you want to keep up with industry insights, be sure to follow Cirtuo’s LinkedIn page