Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

The world of procurement, sourcing, and supply chain are brimming with a myriad of solutions -  software, outsourced services, and consulting – addressing everything from A to Z.  These include solutions for traditional source to pay (S2P) and procure to pay (P2P), contracts, supplier management, tail spend, eAuctions, ESG, supplier diversity, and just about every niche and nuance in between.  It is a virtual smorgasbord of solutions.  And it’s easy to get distracted by some of the cool and new solution offerings on the market, and lose sight of the operational and strategic imperatives in today’s business environments.

Many of this wide range of available solutions are tangential at best to the challenges that face procurement leaders.  They present superfluous (albeit often interesting) solutions to problems that may not actually be immediate priorities, and thus don’t rise to level of being able to be presented in a viable business case or return on investment model.  (Some of the products are in fact, solutions in search of problems…)

Don’t get me wrong, many of these are innovative, and very functionally sound solutions.  But (and it’s a big but), many of them miss the mark in terms of what’s important to procurement leaders, and moreover to their C-suites.  The challenge for procurement is to shift through the solutions and solutions providers to find those which address their specific requirements and current business priorities.

SSON’s annual State of the Industry Global Market Report provides a clear picture of what truly matters to procurement leaders. SSON’s iconic and industry-leading State of the Industry Global Market Report serves as the gold standard for shared services research and insights. It is a true reflection of the market status, which is why more than 1000 of SSON’s members contribute to the survey, and use the findings as a guidebook to help navigate the greater challenges and opportunities in service delivery.

→ →  You can give your input to the upcoming Report which will be published in January 2022.   Make sure to take part in the this important industry survey!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SOI2022

The 2021 Report provided a view of the state of the industry from several perspectives:

• Service Delivery & Operating Model
• Future of Work / Workforce
• Optimizing Process Performance
• Automation & Digitization
• Data Readiness

And from these categories, procurement leaders can get a clear view of what are the current key drivers and imperatives for procurement and sourcing excellence.

Of course, there are unique and company specific requirements which fall outside of the five perspectives in the Report. And that’s why it’s still good to have a wide availability of niche solutions in the market. 

As we move towards 2022, procurement leaders will be pressed harder than ever to focus their time, budget, and resources on initiatives that impact the bottom line, which deliver against key business priorities, and make a difference to corporate stakeholders and the shareholders.  There are, without a doubt, solutions and solution providers which can aid procurement leaders in this, and be instrumental to their success, and the broader success of their companies. 

SSON’s State of the Industry Global Market Report  can provide a roadmap for focusing on those solutions which matter most.  For procurement leaders, the Report can be a Call to Action for 2022 priorities; and for solutions providers, it can give clear guidance as to what priorities the industry is focused on, and thus what solutions are truly needed.