In a changing world where everything is becoming dynamic gradually, using the same old processes and tools will only serve to put us behind the rest. Today’s customers are not happy to be kept waiting and demand immediate service. Businesses have to adapt to the customer’s demands or they risk

Suppliers make up an important part of any organization’s procurement strategies and methodologies and every procurement professional wishes for the best relationships with them. They are, after all, important stakeholders in the business, and organizations have to do what they can to ensure that their relationships with customers are always

Businesses are becoming more and more active and dynamic today. Gone are the days of long development and sales cycles, complex business processes, and communication gaps. At least, even if they haven’t completely gone away, no one today is content with them. Today, everyone wants things to happen quickly and

Travel and expense management in any organization has its own set of challenges. Some of these arise due to the nature of the process, some man-made, some trivial, and some serious. Whatever the cause, these challenges can have an adverse effect on the organization’s bottom line. In this post, we’ll

Any employee who travels on official business has to report all his expenses to claim them later. These expense reports list down all the expenses incurred by the employee in the course of his travel and each expense has to be backed by its receipt as proof. Receipt audit is

Continuing from last week, here are some more best practices in procurement that you can implement at your workplace. A governing policy: Every organization has its own rules and regulations governing procurement. Some organizations frown at purchasing from anyone who has an adverse impact on the environment while some organizations

Today, procurement is an important strategic function that supports nearly all of the organization’s business operations and has an impact on organizational expenditure. Every organization wants to make its procurement as optimal and efficient as possible. By nature a complex process, it takes time for procurement to reach that stage

Supplier relationship management is one of the most important mandates of the procurement function of any organization, part of which is implementing best practices in supplier management. In this post, we’ll see some of these. Suppler performance management: This is an important activity that is unfortunately not followed by too

No one likes to waste time and money doing mundane things that can be done faster using technology. A case in point is invoicing. Whether they offer products or services, freelancers and organizations of all sizes have to send invoices to their customers to collect payments that are due. While

In the second part of this post, we’ll continue where we left off and see some more benefits of reverse auctions for buyers and sellers. Not constrained by location: Even though they would like to bid for a contract, many suppliers are often constrained by their locations. With reverse auctions

Reverse auction, the process by which an organization purchases its raw materials or supplies, is being adopted by more and more organizations today. A system where the traditional roles of the buyer and seller are reversed, in a reverse auction, the supplier’s bid for a chance to fulfill a buyer’s

As I showed in the last post, one of the biggest benefits of online business intelligence software is that it can help with the democratization of data and expertise. In this post, we’ll look at some more. Data-driven decisions: The English business magnate Richard Branson once said, “I rely far

In a previous post titled ‘What Hercules’ second labor teaches us about procurement fraud,’ we equated procurement fraud to Hydra, the many-headed monster that Hercules had to slay and concluded that to eliminate it, instead of tackling each individual case of fraud as it occurs, organizations have to take steps

To put it simply, an invoice is a bill. You fulfill your customer’s need with a product or a service and you present him/her with an invoice to receive payment. Immediate payment of invoices is not the norm; it generally takes about 30 – 60 days for an invoice to

When employees go on business-related trips, their organizations reimburse them on their return. In theory, this is simple – the employee travels, comes back, files an expense report, and gets reimbursed. But in practice, it is not quite so. The process of reimbursement faces several challenges, making it complicated. If

Before we get into procurement fraud and what we can learn about it from Hercules’ second labor, let’s take a look at the second labor itself. To atone for killing his wife and children, Hercules is sent to serve King Eurystheus for a period of twelve years by an oracle.

Expense reimbursement is often a chaotic process in many organizations. With paper and paper work piling up on their desks and the pressure of deadlines growing, many finance executives won’t be able to give each expense report more than a cursory glance before releasing the payment. This introduces the risk

Anyone familiar with Jeffrey Archer’s short story, ‘Crime Pays’ from his 2000 book ‘To Cut a Long Story Short’ will know how easily and ingeniously the protagonist (antagonist?) Kenny Merchant perpetuates invoice fraud against some of the leading businesses in his country. Kenny’s fictitious and thoroughly enjoyable account (you’d be

Salespeople have one of the toughest and most challenging jobs in any company. With daunting targets and demanding bosses on one side and customer expectations, whims, and tantrums on the other side, salespeople have to find a way of balancing the two and delivering results that augment the bottom line.

One myth about SaaS that still seems to continue to dominate public opinion is that it’s not really cost-effective. And it somehow looks to be true, as not all cost benefits are immediately obvious. Legions of people including users, industry experts, and analysts lauding SaaS as the next biggest thing

In part one of this series, we looked at several drivers of supplier risk. In this post, we’ll look at some ways to mitigate this risk. We listed down three major causes: improper supplier selection, over reliance on one/few suppliers and perpetuation of fraud by one or both parties. Here

Online procurement systems help you automate the procurement cycle of your organization. This article will tell you why you need to automate your internal procurement cycle and expound the benefits of deploying advantages. Internal online procurement system must be standardized Without an efficient procurement system, employees order as and when

In this age of cloud computing, online procurement software can help run business procurement efficiently and effectively. Developing an effective procurement strategy has become very important for business. So to start off, understanding the term procurement is necessary. To understand the terminology in a simple way, it is the act

Online invoicing solutions can help you enhance your customer relationship and create loyal customers. Remember that the quality of your customer service and support is every bit as important as the quality of your product. You can provide great customer service and enhance your relationship using invoicing software. Go that

In an earlier post, we told you about reverse auctions and how they help an organization choose their suppliers. In this post, we’ll look at some ways how your organization can get the best out of a reverse auction. Do you need one? Before you follow the general trend and