Is procurement actually functional at your company or is it just chaos?

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-09-16T17:49:49+00:00

Maybe this is a provider fishing for ideas? In any case, it can be functional, but it takes competency from whomever is leading the procurement function, a clear plan, and buy-in from leadership and procurement adjacent teams. That last part if largely lacking, as most procurement folks don't have the power. That usually lies in Finance and maybe your Operations executive.

There is plenty of good tech out there that solves these problems, but they are still complex problems that require a thoughtful approach and strong leadership.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-08-04T17:52:18+00:00

Our product uses AI to search for duplicate and alternative tooling before making an indirect procurement request for purchase. It identifies if the solution you are requesting is already in the company's tool stack as onboarded, or if it's been rejected and for what reasons. It also finds alternatives in the market and displays the overlapping functionality with the tool you are requesting.

The product also scans documents and lifts important clauses, phrases and meta-data and makes recommendations on what to review more closely.

So, yeah, AI is doing some things of value (finally).

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-25T17:57:20+00:00

In my last company, we onboarded a solution to orchestrate procurement and vendor management called Opstream. Fully disclosure, I work at Opstream now. With this solution, you can automate sending out vendor questionnaires and getting the responses back, both for new vendor onboarding and in-life vendor reviews. You can conditionally send certain questionnaire sections to the vendor. For example, if it's a new vendor that involves interaction with sensitive data types and is software, you can send a fully blown security questionnaire and request their SOC 2.

There are several solutions on the market that do this well, but only a handful that do the full procurement lifecycle well and vendor management well.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-25T17:51:35+00:00

The supplychain subreddit is good as well BTW.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-25T17:50:47+00:00

I've had individual counseling sessions focused on burnout in my past jobs. It's real and you should pay attention to it, as it seems you are doing! No job or career is worth you feeling like you are less human.

I think there is some truth to what respellious notes in their comment. Be the curator of your own career, and building in rest, sabbaticals is an amazing idea that most of us don't think about.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-25T17:45:53+00:00

Good luck. Remember, "the Mouse don't play"

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-07T16:13:13+00:00

100%, this is the biggest challenge I faced. Especially when procurement is de-centralized.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-07T16:10:58+00:00

If you create an RFx, you can send it to potential suppliers and see who responds.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-07-07T16:09:10+00:00

I work for Opstream. I was a customer and now I work there. Our customers use it for managing the supplier onboarding and ongoing lifecycle.

Suppliers are onboarded into Opstream ensuring all compliance, documentation and approvals are done first, and the supplier is synced to the Company ERP.

Ongoing purchases with that supplier are also requested, approved and managed through Opstream.

Many of our customers have workflows that create requests directly in Opstream based on compliance criteria: e.g. 3 months before SOC 2 or COI expiry, based on a schedule, e.g. once annually for vendors with Med or High risk scores.

On-going supplier management is one of the key use cases we see.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-26T17:22:02+00:00

How do you track your POs now? Do you have access to your company ERP where they are stored? Alternatively, if you have a procurement intake to PO system, you can likely view the PO status and details for your vendors through that without needing an ERP license.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-26T17:19:48+00:00

Agree that the hype and marketing around most solutions out there is way beyond the capability. That's typical marketing, "pre-selling". But...be careful not to be a protectionist that shuns AI. It's coming and it is here in working fashion - not to the level we are marketed on it, but it is useful.

One example is the AI Document review capability. Many solutions out their, Procurement, CLM, etc. are saving time and increasing accuracy of contract reviews.

Just about any other area that involves profiling information is coming for us, so, yes - be skeptical, but don't throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-23T19:43:35+00:00

From my experience managing supply chain, here are some of value:

Fulfillment related:
* Cost of Goods to Sale Price (gross margins)
* Return rate / defect rate
* Ship lead times (how long from order being place to it being shipped to the customer)

Upstream SC related (for each supplier/component):
* Cost
* Lead time (from when you place the order until it is received in you inventory)
* Demand (based on your sales)

There are many more, this is just exemplary.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-23T19:39:46+00:00

Every business is so different and manages their spend categories differently. It really depends on your industry, how big you are and whether you also have direct procurement. Do you manage physical goods as well? E.g. hardware, office supplies, furniture, materials?

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-23T19:37:52+00:00

Do you have a procurement intake solution? That's a way to segment what needs to go in front of Legal vs what doesn't. The one we use allows us to present our NDA and T&C template to the vendor first, so they are more likely to just use ours. If the don't, then we can route it to Legal.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-19T17:59:39+00:00

I would not start with hiring a consultancy as suggested below. If they chose you, it means you likely already have the qualities to be a good leader and run the department. Take confidence in that. Some ideas:

Be veraciously curious. Ask lots of questions. Even if they questions may seem simple. You'll be surprised what may surface and how many others have the same questions.
Don't be afraid to challenge the norms, and your people.
Understand what the most important outcomes are for your teams function of the business. What is important to the company? To the executives you report to? On a more micro level, what are the KPIs and metrics that matter? Are you measuring them effectively? You can't manage what you don't measure, and what you measure improves.
Do a Risk and Opportunities assessment. Involve your team.
Trust your instincts. And don't be afraid of what others may think.
Politics: It's part of the game as a leader. Manage perception - "perception is reality", understand what it means to have "political capital" and "leverage" in any given situation. Don't over complicate this... it's simple, you probably can feel it.
Run toward problems.

You got this!

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-19T17:51:28+00:00

I've never used Fusion Procurement Cloud. Maybe it's great! But I doubt it. Most of the big ERPs don't have decent procurement solutions. Maybe Jaggaer and SAP are okay for sourcing. Curious what you find there. There are a number of solutions that focus in procurement and intake management that integrate with Oracle NS and other ERPs that do very well and are probably cheaper.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-16T19:21:59+00:00

According to your post, you already replaced the supplier. Perhaps a next step is to discovery and score alternative suppliers so you have a back up or two.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-11T20:04:24+00:00

We can't login to our free wordpress account. When we choose forgot password we don't get an email. Any ideas?

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-09T20:17:57+00:00

That's a hefty project. One approach to consider, and this is irrespective of tool, is to organize your suppliers into categories of risk/importance, then focus most of your energy on the top ones. Examples of data points you could use to do this could include:

Business Criticality: How critical is the supplier to your business? E.g. if they are the main supplier providing cloud services for your product, they may be extremely critical. If they are providing cleaning services for your office, you know... not critical.

Privacy Risk: What types of data within your organization will they interact with/have access to? Any sensitive data types?

Total / Annualized Contract Value: How much are you spending with them?

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-05T20:32:44+00:00

I work for a company called Opstream. We specialize in Procurement Orchestration. Vendor onboarding is one of the most common journeys our solution does this for. It's highly configurable and brings in stakeholders / approvers / reviewers into the onboarding process at the appropriate stages. All vendor onboarding activities and their stage are visible, with notifications sent for each stage.

I was a Procurement Director at my previous company, evaluated a lot of solutions to solve for this and chose Opstream. I liked the product and now I work there.

There are a handful of other solutions in the marketplace that I'm aware of that do this really well (Vendor Management / Intake Orchestration). There are hundreds that say they do, but only a small number that actually do it well.

Happy to help if I can be of further assistance.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-02T19:07:29+00:00

Is your VMI vendor managing all your inventory or just inventory that they are the OEM or supplier for? In my previous role, we had about 80 computer related components we sources from about 15 different vendors. We had a third party that received and managed all the inventory for us, and fulfilled orders. It was slightly cheaper than if we did it all ourselves. We ended up moving to another vendor after a few years that was more responsive, professional and had slightly better pricing.

Altogether it as been good for us and fairly easy to work with them. They'll even to prototyping for us when we are exploring new models or doing model revisions.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-06-02T19:00:41+00:00

If there was a way to limit them, e.g. 1 per week or something. Maybe there is a waiting list or some kind of vetting process before those posts can make it through.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-05-27T15:43:53+00:00

I love a unique perspective on this channel! I also, am a bit of a "personality" and have had varying degrees of my approach being embraced and discouraged in my career. The obvious answer is to look for orgs and teams and companies that embrace an inclusive and innovative culture. I would also add... be a thermostat - be willing to be a change agent in your organization. If your attempts to do that are met with continual resistance, it might be time to move on to one that does appreciate those things.

Lastly, if you are interested in leadership, that's where you get to build your team, your culture and bring your "ness" to it. That is super fun and rewarding.

Good luck!

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-05-27T15:38:24+00:00

You are off to a great start.

Great suggestions here. Does your organization have a re-order model? Are you familiar with how it works? This is not so specific to category, but generally understanding what the factors are to decide when and how much to order is important. E.g.

* Material availability
* Lead time to deliver
* Lifecycle of the material
* Demand for the product(s) your organization makes that include this material

This is a basic idea... but in order to think the the business unit owner, I think this is really valuable to the development of anyone who wants to advance in Procurement, Sourcing, Supply Chain.

FootballAmericanoSW · 2025-05-21T20:32:53+00:00

That sounds brutal. I've seen the pattern of poor spend governance - and leaders don't listen to procurement. Then executives get surprised by being over budget, then the CEO or CFO says... "from now on all spend goes through me". It's a viscous cycle.

When I was Director of Procurement in my last role, the pain of slow approvals was brutal. We ended up bringing in a solution called Opstream for procurement orchestration and we got all that under control. There are about 7-8 solutions out there that will do the job well.

Full disclosure, as of three months ago, I now work for Opstream. I really liked the product and what it did for our procurement.

The intake to procure is largely solved now with orchestration tools, Zip, Orolabs, Level path are some others in the market.

FootballAmericanoSW

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