KPMG Collaborative Category Management – a procurement platform of the future

Software systems have already found their way into the procurement departments of companies in every sector in the form of e-Sourcing, cloud-based purchase-to-pay applications (P2P) etc. Procurement has fundamentally changed in the last few years: A constantly changing procurement portfolio, complex ordering, (global) networking with partners and customers the whole length of the supply chain, as well as real-time access to internal and external data are just a few of the developments that make the opportunities and the risks clear.

But what will the next steps and goals be in a business area that is really controlled by software? What tasks will need to be performed? One thing is certain: Procurement being the business area with the most internal and external interfaces, including ERP and CRM systems, should embrace its role as the innovation scout, technology expert and management generalist if it wants to continue to be located at this key interface between suppliers and the business in the future. Entities that are no longer able to seize and exploit the opportunities of a dynamically changing market environment and to actively manage complexity will leave significant opportunities for savings on the table.

The challenges will continue to mount up – driven by digitalisation, increased work-sharing in the value creation process, ever more new product categories and shorter product life cycles. Effective orchestration of an ever more fragmented process, supported by software, will become the decisive differentiator for success in a highly performant procurement organisation.

In future, the main thrust of procurement will be to rapidly assist decision making with clarity about the options available in a complex and global marketplace – thanks to lean, (partly) automated procurement processes and excellent data quality. Building upon the growing ability to process big data volumes, the arrival of cognitive systems offers huge potential, especially in procurement and purchase controlling.

Networking across national and functional boundaries will become ever more important to buyers. This includes streamlining the interfaces within the business and with suppliers or customers, improving the exchange of data along the entire supply chain, and using the available resources in the ERP system efficiently. Another key aspect is the whole area of compliance and the adherence to legal requirements and guidelines it implies, which a normal purchasing system or even a supplier portal cannot generally detect and apply automatically.

The KPMG procurement platform “KPMG Collaborative Category Management” brings together the relevant actors and information for strategic procurement into a network on an integrated digital platform, and enables speedy and direct collaboration – across departments and organisations.

Using principles of workflow management already honed in practice, it enables a structured and standardised implementation of the procedural steps to develop product group strategies and enables (partial) automation of processes by combining generic and company-specific data sources.

KPMG Collaborative Category Management advances strategic procurement to the point where the value contributed by procurement is raised to a new level, and can support savings targets, risk management and innovation.

• A systematic, standardised, end-to-end process for the development of product group strategies (Strategic Category or Group Management)
• Comprehensive collaboration options connect all stakeholders
• Elimination of activities that do not add value through automation and integrated workflows
• Knowledge capture and documentation, as well as continuous development on a centralised platform

Efficiency: Thanks to modern communication options and workflows, collaboration between all the actors involved is organised more efficiently. Responsibilities and information are institutionalised; compliance is guaranteed, and this creates value.

Effectiveness: KPMG Collaborative Category Management enables close, continuous and agile consensus between procurement management and stakeholders, which increases the value contributed by dynamic strategic decisions for each product group.

Strategy: Using KPMG Collaborative Category Management, procurement is positioned as the digital pioneer of the organisation. As the department with the greatest number of both internal and external interfaces, it becomes the agile value creation manager.

With our digital procurement solution, we want to improve the performance of your procurement, and help you down the path of transformation into a digital purchasing organisation.

We would be happy to answer any questions you may have or organise an initial discussion with you. Get in touch.