INTRODUCTION DIGITALISATION IN PROCUREMENT: WITH IMPACT BUT WITHOUT PRIORITY? Opportunities and potentials from usage of digital technologies are endless, but so are the challenges and organisational implications. Harvesting opportunities and avoiding pitfalls require a certain degree of maturity towards digitalisation1. In this report, we present the findings from a survey on digital maturity covering responses from +140 individual procurement practitioners in 20 countries. The main finding is that few procurement functions have allocated ressources necesarry to realise the potential in digital technologies. This is despite an awareness of digitalisation as being important – not only to keep up with incremental improvements – but also and more importantly to strengthen the competitive power of the organisation as a whole. In general, digitalisation maturity level is low with respect to both processes, data quality and digital strategy. And perhaps because these fundamental elements of digitalisation are not yet in place, procurement functions tend to look inwards in their digitalisation efforts, and building an ecosystem seems to be low on the list of priorities. The ecosystems exist, but digital maturity is low. WHAT WILL YOU GET OUT OF READING THIS REPORT? We will give our recommendations for HOW to take your procurement function to the next level of digital, not for the sake of technology but for the sake of value. We will present you with our findings on procurement functions’ digital maturity level, across sections, and across company sizes. The aim is to provide you with an overview of the level of digital maturity in procurement functions so that you may be able to compare your procurement function with your peers. We will also highlight some of the main barriers that companies struggle with in order to realise the full digital potential of their procurement function as well as the main drivers behind their digitalisation initiatives. KEYWORDS Low digital maturity High impact of digitalisation Lack of top management focus Ecosystems not prioritised, risk of losing out on innovative solutions Cost leadership as main motivation Procurement leader driving efforts Lack of time and competences Unrealised value in supplier relationship management 1 In this report, we use digital and digitalisation interchangeably to cover the present complex nature of digital work and organisational transformation. 3
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