From Hype to Reality with Digital Procurement

Vitold Horodecki - Americas Chief Procurement Officer, Capgemini

Last November, I was speaking at the CPO event with two excellent co-speakers : Daniel Cameron and James Colangelo; all of us addressing the fascinating subject of “Going from Hype to Reality with Digital Procurement”.
 What a good topic with all big words flying around us: Procurement AI, Procurement Automation, block chain for procurement, digital procurement, etc etc etc
 I would like to start with 2 very personal views:
Nobody cares really about digital procurement
I know it's difficult to hear but outside Procurement professionals and their suppliers the concept of having procurement to move digital doesn't have a lot of echo. You will not make dream any CEOs or CFOs talking about automated PO creations and savings 2 FTEs.
The "D" word is used only by non digital native companies/department
Leonardo Bonanni, the founder/COE of sourcemap, clearly explained me that Digital native companies barely use the "Digital" word, as irrelevant looking at their structures and experiences. They are born cloud based and already integrated latest technologies in their offers.
 That in mind what can be done to move our organization using "old" tech to the new digital age:
Start small
Be humble and don't try to make a revolution in 6 months with new systems. The Dev Ops principles help to start small and cheap and fail fast and cheap. This way you can address one very specific topic solve it quick, through quick iterations and expend fast if successful.
Empower your employees
Give your employees a chance to try ideas and risking failing. One idea is to give each of them a specific problem to address, test various solutions and implement when relevant. With the new tech around you don't need a multi-million transformation budget, just few tech partners willing to start working with you and your team and for a reasonable budget.
Focus on the business
Digital efforts must be put at the service of your businesses and not so much procurement. Adding a dynamic supplier’s ecosystem that can drive innovation for your business lines if more relevant than on optimizing PO and much more interesting. Good innovations for your businesses means more revenues and/or better client satisfaction and/or better margin.

As always Procurement is as strong as the value it delivers to the businesses not to itself.

Vitold Horodecki - Americas Chief Procurement Officer – Capgemini