 By Jamie Martino, IT, Telecom and Technology Strategic Sourcing and Operations Executive
We are living in unprecedented times. Our personal and business lives are disrupted and individuals and business owners are equally anxious. Work from Home has now become the new norm for the typical Office Professional. Depending upon the role that you and your company play in the global economy, you may find yourself incredibly busy or, conversely, with more time on your hands than you might desire.
At any given hour of the business day, we choose to work "in the business" or "on the business". Too often, we prioritise working "in the business" due to daily demands, leaving strategy, analytics and planning as an afterthought. The current environment may be the best time to significantly improve your business, margins, and vendor relationships through an Electronic Request for Proposal (eRFP) launch.
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 By Maurice Sayinzoga, Senior Manager, Policy & Research, Digital Impact Alliance
Digital technology holds the key to sustainable development; however, many countries' governments struggle to harness the power of digital technology for their citizens. The intricate complexities of public procurement processes and the overwhelming knowledge base of information needed to make sound buying decisions in an ever-changing digital market are an ongoing challenge.
Research by the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) has shown that many countries still struggle with several obstacles to ensure efficient and effective acquisition, deployment, and management of digital technology for public service delivery. These obstacles include a procurement function misaligned with national digital transformation ambitions, procurement processes, and standards not harmonized across government agencies, and not suited for digital technology contracting and limited specialized skills.
Hear more international insights on implementing a digital strategy to enable strategic sourcing in the public sector at the upcoming Smart Procurement World Indaba in September 2021
WORKSHOP | Implementation of Strategic Sourcing in the Public Sector from a Digital Perspective
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 By Dustin Lanier, a Certified Public Procurement Officer (CPPO) and Principal Consultant at public procurement consulting firm Civic Initiatives.
For any automation project in government to make it through the "hard middle" where enthusiasm wanes and the bug counts grow, there has to be a burning "why?"
So, what is the "why?" on procurement automation?
Hear more international insights from Dustin at the upcoming Smart Procurement World Indaba in September 2021
KEYNOTE SYMPOSIUM | Cross-sector procurement trends as revealed by COVID-19
Is it possible to implement strategic sourcing in the public sector? What is preventing effective strategies in this space?
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 A good number of South African organisations find themselves in precarious positions when it comes to procurement because they have yet to properly integrate their basic processes and their weaknesses have become more evident during a time that limits peoples' movements and physical contact.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed almost every business process and for procurement, it has exposed the need to improve existing processes and pressured organisations to incorporate digital solutions as remote working has become a norm for the foreseeable future.
In a recent survey conducted by software development company Oxalys South Africa, in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) and Smart Procurement, entitled: Post Covid-19: Procurement Key Priorities and Challenges in the Digital Era in South Africa, it was established that although there might be a lack of maturity in the South African procurement space, there is a real will to make it a strategic function, especially in the wake of the challenges brought on by the pandemic.
In fact, many South African organisations have not shied away from adopting digital solutions to streamline their business processes. It is a trend procurement must follow because current and future circumstances continue to demand automation for improved processes.
However, South African organisations must adopt the right path and a practical solution to digital procurement.
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 By Erin McFarlane, Vice President: Services, Fairmarkit
If you have recently joined an organisation or moved into a new role that is directly related to procurement, it can be challenging to know where to start. Even if you have been in the role for a while, the whirlwind of daily activity can distract you from having a strong holistic view of your organisation's relationship with its supply base.
There are hundreds of valuable metrics to help you better understand your company's supply chain. But like any professional, you have limited time and reporting requests can distract your team from critical activities. If you are in procurement and trying to better understand the commodity or category that you have been assigned, understanding the numbers is especially important to getting off to a great start.
Here are the top five spend analytics measures, along with how to define them, where to find them and what influence they have on your company:
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 By Piotr Raszewski, Senior Analyst: Knowledge Services, Infosys, and
Srikrishna Koneru, AVP, Strategic Business Practice Head: Sourcing and Procurement, Infosys
When one thinks of ways to measure the effectiveness of cross-operation between procurement and finance, more than a few methods come to mind. Purchase order (PO) compliance rate, discount utilisation, the number of active vendor accounts, etc., are some of the indicators.
The business metric of impacting payment on time, however, best reflects the level of synergy between procurement and finance. In this article, we will look at one of the resounding examples of how business intelligence (BI) reports and data analytics can be leveraged to gain a clear perspective on the cause-and-effect relationship between the two departments.
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 All sorts of spend analytics technology is available - but how do you best translate this data into constructive action? Procurious spoke to Kirk Poucher, Managing Director of SpendHQ.
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 By Sammeli Sammalkorpi
During the past few months, I have discussed with a number of chief procurement officers (CPOs) how they have managed procurement during COVID-19. One recurring answer was along the lines of 'we broke all of our processes and went into wild-west-mode'. Now, many said this with an interesting combination of sadness and pride. Sadness that they had to give away great processes perceived to be the basis of any professional procurement organisation. Pride and excitement at how procurement teams were able to improvise, work hard and survive.
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 By Kevin Sample, Senior Consultant at healthcare supply chain firm GHX
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the spotlight is once again on the healthcare supply chain
The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine has once again put the global healthcare supply chain under the magnifying glass. As inoculation programmes are established, the demand for full vaccination kits, which include syringes, glass and personal protective equipment (PPE), is likely to put strain on the supply chain. If not addressed properly, this could lead to delivery delays and critical supply shortages similar to those seen earlier this year. So, what can hospitals and other healthcare providers do to mitigate the supply chain risk they faced at the onset of the pandemic?
A large part of the answer lies in how they use data.
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 By Steve Banker, Vice President: SCM, ARC Advisory Group
Customer loyalty begins with excellent service and timely delivery. Companies have come under pressure to unify their buying experience across channels, capture orders easily, and deliver them rapidly and accurately.
When it comes to gauging the loyalty of an organisation's customer relationships, the net promoter score (NPS) survey typically represents best practice. The NPS is correlated with revenue growth and calculated based on responses to a single, simple question: how likely is it that you would recommend this company/product/service to a friend or colleague?
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 By Dr Ambrish Kumar, Founder and Group CEO, AAA 2 Innovate Pvt Ltd
The world is waiting for the COVID-19 vaccine. Distributing it globally from its points of production is a gargantuan task. In fact, it is a task some feel should best be left to the expertise of military logistics.
The vaccine is beginning its rollout on the heels of large scale, global logistics and distribution stoppages. Those tasked with its distribution are on the backfoot.
The spread of the virus has grown exponentially in certain regions, compelling lockdowns and an unprecedented hindrance to countless businesses. One of the most affected sectors, since the very beginning and still, is the aviation and air travel sector.
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 By Matthias Gutzmann, Founder, Digital Procurement World
Digital procurement transformation is no longer an option, it is a must. Ignoring it today will ultimately lead to a loss of procurement's influence in the organization. On a more positive note, early adopters in digital procurement are already benefiting from incremental cost savings, increased productivity, and substantial improvements in innovation, quality, speed, and risk management.
As a CPO, it is absolutely necessary to understand how digitally mature your procurement organization really is, how you compare to others, and the key steps to digital maturity.
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 A little innovation never hurt anyone. But whilst Maverick Spend may cause us to re-evaluate our processes, it can wreak havoc and cause long-lasting damage. Georg Roesch, Senior Manager at JAGGAER, outlines five ways you can prevent it from happening and keep it under control.
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By Sammeli Sammalkorpi, VP: Customers and Co-founder of procurement analytics solutions provider Sievo
Let's face it - procurement teams are not the first to hop on the latest technology trends and the industry has been historically slow to digitize daily workflows. But now, with more data being generated in the last two years than in the history of mankind, procurement teams are starting to realize not only the benefits and competitive advantage that new technology can bring, but also that it is nearly impossible to manage the abundance of new data sets without it. For example, leveraging AI and machine learning to integrate this new data into procurement analytics strategies can equip organizations to dynamically understand spending, predict future outcomes and measure the trade-offs of various sourcing decisions.
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 By Gordon Reid, Lead - Transparent Procurement Advisory Programme
One of the first things that I learned when I started my unplanned career in Procurement is that you cannot do it alone. Besides the team that you work with, you also need support and buy-in from people across all departments of the organisation for Procurement to make a real impact on the business.
Each organisation will be different but, based on my experience, here are seven departments in an organisation where I believe it is essential for Procurement to have a strong working relationship with key individuals.
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 When companies think about security, it is usually about securing their networks, software and digital assets against cyber-attacks and/or data breaches. But, in supply chain - whether it is a vendor used for facilities management or for cloud hosting - almost every organisation depends on a growing supply chain of services, creating an eco-system of dependency. As this eco-system grows to include fourth- and fifth-parties, it becomes more vulnerable to security risks. Recent major cyber-attacks were as a result of third-parties being compromised.
In this month's SmartProcurement, Venisha Nayagar, Director at Crypt IT Information Risk Management, takes a look at supply chain data risks.
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 While it is true that you often have to spend money to make money, optimising every cent by tapping into the power of spend analysis creates significant savings opportunities compared with flying blind and having no visibility on your spend.
To get an optimal return on your investment, it pays to understand and implement effective procurement spend analysis as part of your overall business process management.
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 By Dr Marcell Vollmer, Chief Innovation Officer, Celonis
Across all industries, procurement leaders are seeking significant and measurable productivity gains. New technology, based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, is driving the digital transformation of the procurement function to deliver value, driving supplier innovations, performing risk management, securing a sustainable supply chain and, of course, managing budgets.
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