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Procurement

Dec 07
premikati marketplace

2 Things Your Business Needs To Do ASAP

By Procurement No Comments

Do you need to take a serious assessment of your business right now?

For months, we’ve seen how COVID-19 has affected our personal lives, businesses, and the way our society functions in general. And if you haven’t taken the time to really dive into how your business is functioning from the ground up, I challenge you to make this your top priority.

The impact that COVID-19 has had on business is emphasizing what has always been true: The future is filled with unforeseen circumstances, and the world is changing fast. Businesses need to be smart, agile, and innovative, but it’s hard to do this if you don’t have a solid foundation in place.

Many businesses are experiencing budget cuts and a reduced workforce. Now is the time to become more strategic with your game plan and fix or improve current processes.

Plain and simple, if you haven’t already, you need to:

1. Cut costs.
2. Make sure time is used efficiently as possible.

Of course, while this may be simple, it is frequently not easy. Here are ways you can approach making these essential assessments:

You Need to Dial In Your Spending.
We want our businesses to not just survive—we want them to thrive. However, especially in the last several months, many companies have shifted into survival mode.

Companies in many industries are having to take a hard look at their expenses, and there have been significant cuts across the board. It’s essential to stay lean and mean, and you need to be bold, proactive, and smart when evaluating where you can cut back.

Part of successfully cutting costs begins with asking the right questions. I encourage businesses to consider:

  • What do you actually NEED for your business to operate right now? Are you actually accumulating things you don’t need? How have your needs changed with more employees working from home?
  • How are purchases approved? Who is in charge of approving purchases? Are they able to review and approve in a timely manner? Are inefficient processes causing your business to miss out on important opportunities that could have been? Who is spending money on what, and how can you find out this information?
  • Are you actually buying from the BEST supplier for your specific needs? Are you getting the very best deals on items you truly need? Are the products you’re using high quality? Does your supplier provide a top-notch shopping experience so you don’t waste time? Does your supplier provide excellent customer service?

Not only do you need to simplify your procurement process, but you need to make sure you’re also getting the most out of it.

Is Valuable Time Being Wasted?

While working from home can have its perks, there is an added layer of complexity due to the unique challenges of COVID-19. People are not simply “working from home”; they are doing everything from home. And with budget cuts, employees may be working harder and longer hours than ever.

Your goal here is to let your employees spend time on the things that really sustain and grow your business. Again, identifying how to fix and improve processes begins with asking the right questions:

  • Are your employees wasting valuable hours on easy-to-solve procurement issues? For example, how many hours do they spend manually reconciling purchase orders with invoices? (How many hours or days does this add up to each year?)
  • How long do employees spend researching the suppliers with the lowest costs? After investing in hours researching suppliers, have you ended up actually saving money? Are the suppliers reputable? Do they offer white glove customer support where you can talk to a real person right away?
  • How much time does it take to get set up with each new supplier? Is it worth the investment? How long until you’ll need to find a new supplier to grow with your business? How long will it take you to figure out if it’s the best fit for your needs?

Don’t waste time doing things that have simple, elegant solutions already available.

***

No matter what your unique challenges may be during this time, every business can benefit from taking a hard look at how time and money are being used.

If you read this and felt slightly panicked or overwhelmed, you’re not alone. This stuff is hard. It can be time-consuming to figure out, and sometimes it can feel easier to let things get done the way they always have, instead of making the investment in a potential solution that may or may not work out. You need to figure out a way to make big changes… without wasting even more money and time.

Premikati Marketplace has you covered. How can you know for sure? We know from experience exactly what businesses (like yours!) struggle with the most.

Premikati Marketplace helps your business:

  • Cut costs. Companies that use Premikati Marketplace save up to 35% due to pre-negotiated pricing on millions of items, efficiencies, and spend visibility.
  • Use time efficiently. Set up Premikati Marketplace in less than 24 hours. You don’t need any IT or technical admin support, either.

Click here to learn more about the Premikati Marketplace

Oct 13
Virtual Card

5 Reasons Why Virtual Cards Are The Future of B2B Spending

By Procurement No Comments

Virtual cards offer added safety, reduced costs, reduced waste, boosted cash back, unprecedented spend visibility, and instant reconciliation. That’s why we partnered with Ramp to bring our customers all of these benefits and more. 

In order to explain why virtual cards are such a boon for business expenses, it’s important to first understand what a virtual card actually is. A virtual card is similar to a credit card in that it has numbers, a date, and all of the information you’d normally use when inputting your card information for an online purchase. However, unlike a regular debit or credit card, you don’t keep using the same virtual card for years until it expires. 

Instead, a virtual card is like a disposable credit card that’s linked to your actual credit or debit card. A virtual card may be good only for a single purchase, a set duration, or up to a certain spend limit. After that, it’s done. You just get a new one.  Why would you want an endless stream of card numbers for your business? Well, there are actually a lot of reasons, especially if you’re still using paper checks or paper invoices. Some of the most important reasons to use a virtual card for your B2B spend include: 

Safety

Think about this—you don’t carry around the originals of your most important documents, do you? Like your social, birth certificate, or marriage license? Usually, we just give someone a copy. A disposable version that won’t really impact our lives if it’s lost. 

Virtual cards are kind of like that from a safety perspective. Avoid having your personal information stolen as well as interruptions that are likely to occur if you have to report fraudulent activity on your account and wait for a new card. Hackers and fraudsters alike are stopped in their tracks with a virtual card, though. And if you suspect suspicious activity while the card is still active, no big deal. Just cancel it and grab a new card number, leaving all your actual accounts in tact and safely away from the outside world. 

Even outside of privacy invasions and malicious actors on the web, internal fraud also has no room to grow. Because spend can be set for a specific limit and purchases are visible in real-time, there’s not much room for internal fraud to take hold. Consider it damage mitigation and risk prevention.

Obligatory COVID-19 tie-in: 

It’s 2020. We’d be crazy not to mention how (or if) virtual cards can help during the pandemic as business processes are completely upended in the name of social distancing. While some analog businesses are stuck dealing in papers and in-person contact, businesses that use virtual cards can manage their jobs quicker, safer, and from the security of home minus all the security risks. Virtual cards are one way to boost business continuity during the coronavirus. 

Reduce Costs (And Save The Trees)

Money is expensive, am I right? Not only is it costly to have people working to collect paper invoices, print paper checks, reconcile spend, and on and on and on, the simple materials cost alone is staggering. 

“Paper checks account for $12.5 trillion of business spend every year in the US alone.” –Tracy Kellaher

I don’t even want to contemplate what that means for the environment, especially if you start looking at envelopes too. 

Make two strategic strides at once by reducing paper waste and excess spend with the switch to virtual cards. 

Cash Back

Sure, some banks offer a little cash back on purchases, but what if you could get rewarded in ways befitting to a business? Not only do you get the added benefits of ditching the expense reports and the paper piles in favor of automated accounting, you could earn 1.5% cashback and possibly even more in rebates just for spending in the same ways you already do. 

Plus, you can maximize that cashback by utilizing dozens of cards across the company, because it will no longer be such a risk to equip your employees with a little company plastic. Cha-ching! 

Spend Visibility

Spend visibility is basically a buzzword now. It’s something you need in order to accurately track your finances and make wise choices about your suppliers. Through the use of virtual cards, you become equipped with basically instant full spend visibility for every analog method you replace. Easily view the 50k foot overview or a granular, single-user, single-purchase snippet of data, all updated in real-time. No more waiting. 

This offers a major boost to spend forecasting that can now be easily viewed filtered by category—e.g. department, merchant, or employee.  You can search, get customized alerts, and even find automated savings. 

Instant Reconciliation

Tired of chasing people down? Equally tired of waiting and waiting only to spend a bunch of time reconciling invoices? If you’re doing it the analog way, then that’s good—it means your brain already knows there’s an easier way. 

With virtual cards, you can experience the efficiency of instant reconciliation. Automatic categorization and receipt-matching plus accounting integrations let the old expense report take care of itself. With cards from Ramp, modern finance teams can save 5.4 days and $15k per month. And the really cool thing about that is… 

Premikati has partnered up with Ramp to provide unlimited virtual and physical cards to make managing your spend a breeze. Earn cashback, access more than $150k in partner rewards, easy accounting integrations and no fees. Plus, Ramp boasts 10-20x the limits of traditional credit lenders thanks to their novel underwriting system and a 30 day payment schedule with no interest. We’re excited to join together to help you find strategic savings from the best suppliers, safety, spend visibility, and a big win for the environment.  

 

Oct 05
Contract Management

5 Ways Legal Teams Gain A Boost From Contract Management Software

By Procurement, Procurement Managed Services No Comments

Navigating procurement contracts as a legal professional and feel like walking through a minefield, especially if your company is still relying on outdated procurement practices. A good, digital contract management system such as SAP Ariba causes risk to plummet using mitigation techniques like full, auditable visibility and alerts about potential risk factors. It also saves legal departments a lot of time reviewing almost-identical contracts. Here are a few reasons contract management software is critical to modern legal professionals working in the procurement:

Verifiably Maintain Compliance

Compliance is non-negotiable within your organization, but verifying and maintaining compliance can seem like an insurmountable task. Proper contract management using SAP Ariba software offers legal teams many compliance protections including clear visibility into the entire contract lifecycle, alerts for nonstandard contract agreements, and a full audit trail along the way. 

External compliance such as rules put in place from regulatory bodies like state and local governments can be handled within the system as well as internal compliance concerns such as quality expectations. If any issues arise, they can be quickly addressed to avoid any further risk while still fostering a trusting relationship with your suppliers. 

Gain Unprecedented Visibility Throughout The Entire Contract Lifecycle

On the point of visibility, contract management extends from the initiation phase through to negotiation and onward into contract renewal. Being able to see the entire lifecycle can help legal professionals spot risks before they become an issue, so they can be addressed with urgency.

Traceable Esignatures

Esignatures have put pens on the backburner. Not only is the digital signature completed online without the need for paper mail or tedious faxing, it is traceable in ways that a pen signature cannot be.  Esignatures also offer a boost to contract accuracy because it guides suppliers through each step of the signing process (sign here, initial here, etc.) so your legal team no longer has to deal with missed steps and incorrectly managed paperwork. 

Additionally, esignature platforms offer reminders for suppliers who take a bit longer to add their signature. This helps ensure that all contracts are signed fully to avoid any legal snafus that can arise from liabilities caused by incomplete contracts  (which are ,effectively, no contracts.) 

Controlled, Automated Processes You Can Rely On

Using templates and clause libraries, procurement teams are able to put together their own contracts using pre-approved language. In the event that a nonstandard  contract needs to be created, a notification for review will be sent. This helps ensure that all contracts are legally admissible without consuming focus and massive swaths of time. Legal professionals can use their time providing greater value for the company than constantly reviewing nearly-indentical contracts. 

Reduce Risk With Performance Insights 

Whenever supplier deliveries aren’t meeting standards, or if a supplier chooses to utilize non-compliant tactics, the issue must be dealt with swiftly in order to avoid as much damage as possible.  The SAP Ariba contract management system makes it easy to track performance and view the information from a centralized dashboard. Intervening early can help salvage supplier relationships as well as reduce overall legal risks associated with defective or non-compliant parts.

If you want to see what we can do for you with our SAP Ariba-backed contract management system, reach out to us today. 

About Premikati

Premikati is a woman-owned business of procurement experts providing best-in-class software to maximize your company’s ROI.  

Our award-winning team has a 100% success rate implementing on-time and on-budget, due to our agility, leanness, operational experience, and the ability to tailor the transformation process from C-level to end user. (For more information, visit www.premikati.com)

Oct 05

Contract Management Software Boosts Quick Wins for Procurement Teams

By Procurement No Comments

Contracts are the heart and soul of procurement operations. Even a few outdated processes can slow down your team and impact supplier relationships. A modern contract management system, however, can eliminate many long-standing painpoints, save time, and even enhance communications with suppliers in ways that may lead to greater trust and better deals. The following are just a few reasons that robust contract management is a big win for your procurement team:

Easily Search Using Keywords

Do you know where all your contracts are? Do you know which suppliers provide which items without having to go on a wild goose chase? A good contract management system helps centralize your contracts in an indexed database so you can easily search for whatever contract information you need, even on the go.

Blaze Through Contract Processes With Templates

Most procurement teams send a lot of very similar contracts that go on to follow very similar processes. Instead of starting over from scratch every time or using makeshift methods (like the “find” function) can result in errors. Contract management based on SAP Ariba enables the use of templates to manage contract cycles that behave alike. By using templates, your team can ensure that all changes relevant to the supplier at hand have been made accurately and consistently across the board, more effectively and efficiently than other, outdated methods. Even if entire contract templates don’t sound suited to your business, SAP Ariba can handle a full clause library so your team can pick and choose as needed.

Templates help ensure agreement terms are in line with your company’s legal advice from the start, speeding up contract creation and completion to unprecedented speeds. This doesn’t mean you’re locked in, though. SAP Ariba-based contract management also allows for non-standard agreements which require closer review. 

Information Dashboards and Notifications

When one of these nonstandard agreements comes through, all relevant parties can receive a notification to review the requested changes. This helps eliminate minor changes that can turn into big risks that might otherwise go unnoticed without a templated system. This helps ensure a healthy start for buyer and supplier alike. 

Other information dashboards can present important info in a quick, digestible, easy-to-under format. Find data on all of your contracts like contract duration, bids, and upcoming important dates.

Alerts for impending contract renewal dates can offer teams enough time to re-evaluate each supplier and research alternatives before the renewal date instead of being blindsided when the renewal date has come and passed. This way, your team can enter negotiations well prepared as well as save everyone time in the process. 

Manage Compliance And Performance

Including managing compliance for nonstandard contracts and mitigating many of the associated risks, a good contract management system can manage both internal and external compliance concerns. Whether compliance from a regulatory body or an internal expectation of performance and quality, SAP Ariba can ensure that the entire procurement process is visible and everyone involved is compliant to all relevant standards so any issues can be dealt with early, not once they’ve already caused a problem.

Esignatures For Better Speed and Accuracy

Pens are a thing of the past for procurement contracts. Esignatures bring a lot of benefits to the table for procurement teams. Not only is it much, much faster for everyone to sign online than to fax or snail-mail back and forth, it’s also safer (in Covid-19 terms and compliance terms!). Esignature software like DocuSign which is the platform of choice for SAP Ariba users walk suppliers through every box that requires a signature or initial to ensure that nothing is missed in the signing process. Esigning software can also send automated reminders to clients to ask them to please sign the contract, saving your procurement team a lot of time, leg-work, and chasing. 

Nurture Supplier Relationships

All of the things combined help you nurture relationships with your clients. Your team will have more time and more energy to truly engage with suppliers to establish trust and rapport—two qualities of a great buyer-supplier relationship that can easily net your team better deals and priority communications. 

See Your Best-Value Suppliers At A Glance 

A proper contract management system is also able to pull all of the above together to show you which of your suppliers are the best value based on the data you have provided. Based on data, good procurement software can let you know which suppliers to focus on in order to make the greatest impact. That may mean deepening partnership opportunities with some suppliers but it may also call attention to low performers so changes can be made as soon as possible. 

If you want to see what we can do for you with our SAP Ariba-backed contract management system, reach out to us today. 

About Premikati

Premikati is a woman-owned business of procurement experts providing best-in-class software to maximize your company’s ROI.  

Our award-winning team has a 100% success rate implementing on-time and on-budget, due to our agility, leanness, operational experience, and the ability to tailor the transformation process from C-level to end user. (For more information, visit www.premikati.com)

Oct 02
procurement spokes of the wheel

The Spokes in the Wheel of Procurement

By Procurement No Comments

So many things have changed in 2020, what a year! But, what matters most is ensuring the spokes of your procurement wheels are all there. It really comes down to the most important fundamentals within the entire procurement space.

Typically, procurement involves designing and deploying strategies that will drive value from the supplier base. To start this process requires in-depth research on current and emerging trends to help determine new solutions and which suppliers are the best fit. Then, it is about managing relationships, conducting best practices in negotiation, and driving a cost-effective plan. Tools to ensure best-in-class procurement can vary from business to another, but here are the essential practices.

Use cloud-based procurement tools

There isn’t a better time than the present to implement future-ready procurement activities. Make sure team members have more time to spend on strategic initiatives, as well as reducing repetitive manual tasks are all vital for continuity especially in the face of unprecedented circumstances.

Invariably, technology plays a massive component of everyday activities. As such, a procurement digital transformation becomes inevitable. Moreover, competitive organizations are the ones taking the lead around implementing digital procurement processes.

Initiate supplier evaluation

Unquestionably this is a crucial step. It takes analytical insights and data to evaluate a potential supplier comprehensively before sending out the contract. In addition, you must execute due diligence around quality, delivery, pricing, and supply chain transparency. Some say this is one of the most important spokes of your procurement wheel.

Many businesses consider procurement as one of their top priorities since it can take up a significant portion of their overall spend. While many companies still have manual procurement practices in place, it’s critical to transition to and embrace relevant technology solutions to keep up with evolving business and consumer demands.

Interview prospective vendors

It is imperative to interview vendors to learn more about their services and products. Every business has a set of suppliers who deliver essential products and services. Yet, qualifying and managing suppliers can become quite complex. It begins with identification of a prospective supplier, then onboarding, scheduling, invoicing, and payments. When executed manually, these processes can take hours each. Other ways to improve supplier engagement include:

  • Viewing suppliers as strategic partners
  • Setting parameters around specific KPIs
  • Creating a mutually-beneficial partnership based on trust
  • Facilitating easy communication and collaboration

Optimize inventory

Depending on the economy, and shifts in the market, profit margins can shrink. As such, it is crucial to constantly be on the lookout for ways to improve profits and control spend. So then, procurement should be involved in optimizing inventory as the cost of “holding” inventory is much greater than ordering products. Generally, holding costs should be no more than 30 percent – this includes consumable items, electronics, clothing, and more.

So what causes an unbalanced inventory? Usually, it is the result of ineffective forecasting and planning. To improve inventory management requires data-driven analytics and insights. Ask these questions to help optimize your inventory:

  • Have any products or services been over-or-under purchased?
  • What is the ratio of operating inventory relative to excess stock?
  • What is the desired rate of purchases?
  • Do purchase orders align with current inventory levels?

Incorporate spend transparency

Transparency opens opportunities for finding savings and enhancing operational efficiencies. Not to mention, spend transparency enables accountability while mitigating the potential for fraud. What steps can you take to incorporate spend transparency? Below are a few of the fundamentals:

  • Spend time defining and deploying procurement policies
  • Document every step of your procurement wheel and monitor progress
  • Make sure your contracts are fool-proof
  • Execute audits frequently

The objective is to decimate maverick and dark spending. With procurement technology, you can use the power of automation and analytics to do just that.

Improve contract management

How would you rate your bargaining abilities? Negotiation skills are paramount in terms of procurement. You don’t want to bend on either quantity or quality. When you embark upon a well-negotiated partnership, you improve your competitive edge while inducing cost savings where needed. One of the most common issues in procurement is contract management.

Why do contracts matter? For many reasons including consistency, supply chain continuity, and budgeting. And, it’s also critical to have a central repository where you can quickly review, manage, and audit your contracts at any time – accessible from anywhere.

Collaborate with suppliers

Now that you have initiated the contract, it’s time to ensure a steady workflow to ensure product shipment or service delivery remains smooth. This is also the time to have backup plans in place in the event of an unforeseen scenario. Supplier management is all about people management.

Manage in-house expectations

Remember that you will still need to win over the confidence of your team members regarding both quantity and quality expectations. As a result, it is important to be prepared for any potential issues, to be transparent with your responses, and to be open to team suggestions.

Review periodically

You might have signed the contract, but it’s not over yet. Now, you must be vigilant to keep suppliers on task with fulfilling their agreements. Still, you must be diplomatic at all times. Keep an eye on the contracts, market conditions, and evolving business requirements.

Final thought

You are now aware of the spokes of your procurement wheel. Some of these processes might seem familiar while others could be new. Nonetheless, procurement excellence mandates proper implementation. The first step in creating a competitive and sustainable procurement process is with the right technology tools. Only then can you make data-driven decisions, maintain compliance, reduce expenses, optimize inventory, and more. Contact Premikati today if you’re ready to take the spokes of your procurement wheel to the next level.

Jul 12
Group Purchasing Organization Premikati Marketplace

Leverage Group Purchasing Organizations for Your Business

By Procurement No Comments

When you talk about Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) for improving cost savings, the most strategic way this is done is through indirect spend. For example, an organization’s expenditures that are necessary for ongoing business operations but does not directly impact a company’s final output of products or services.

Items categorized under indirect spend might be hardware, furniture, contracted labor, office supplies, and cleaning services. Companies can become members of a GPO to enjoy significant discounts relative to buying items individually and paying for the retail markup. Other ways a GPO can save money include the following:

Specialized Programs: In-office technologies such as smart devices, hardware, and software.

Negotiation: Let the GPO handle supplier relationship management while the company enjoys the advantages of pre-negotiated pricing such as can be found through vetted Ariba suppliers within the Premikati Marketplace.

Accessibility: SMBs may find it more difficult to get the best pricing from the top suppliers. A GPO can help small and mid-sized companies receive the same aggressive pricing usually reserved for enterprise businesses.

What is a GPO?

Usually, a GPO will offer a platform for businesses in similar sectors to join. A GPO is designed to negotiate competitive supplier pricing for its members. As the GPO grows in size, so do the discounts. As a result, A GPO can give many small and mid-sized businesses access to cost savings they may not have reached on their own.

How do GPOs operate?

The driving component of a GPO is its membership. To illustrate, a large number of members gives the GPO the leverage to purchase in volume. And, by purchasing in bulk, every member receives a much better deal on the supplies they would normally purchase. So then, businesses can garner the benefits of bulk pricing without having to purchase in bulk.

How GPOs save companies money

Every business has purchasing needs. Yet, those purchases will add up quickly due to retail markup and inability to negotiate better prices are items bought in small volumes. On the other hand, GPOs can negotiate on behalf of their members to get better pricing.

The contracts can be broken down into two facets: A discount and a rebate. GPO specialists will reach out to and negotiate with manufacturers to set the pricing and rebate levels. In terms of rebates, a GPO contract may offer a rebate per case of products paid to an operator. GPOs also conduct savings analysis of several months’ worth of invoices to see where they can implement further cost cuts. In essence, the GPO is your partner and one who is well connected. A GPO may also offer procurement consulting and supply chain management.

Other forms of savings

There is also more to a GPO than the straightforward cost savings. GPOs also save businesses time because they no longer have to go through the exhaustive search of finding the right suppliers then trying to negotiate a price that fits within their budgets. A GPO takes all the work out of negotiations.

Would a GPO membership make sense for your business?

There isn’t any question that a GPO membership will help to keep costs down while saving businesses time around supplier searches and negotiations. The power of group purchasing makes pricing much more competitive. Not to mention, these savings can help to keep businesses operational when dealing with unprecedented circumstances such as a pandemic.

Premikati encourages businesses to take a diversified approach and to work with a GPO that aligns with your business values and objectives. As a result, you can bring more procurement benefits to your organization that will go beyond monetary savings.

Jul 12
CFO Spend Visibility in Procurement

3 Ways for CFOs to Increase Spend Visibility

By Procurement No Comments

Summary: Premikati Marketplace bolsters the efforts of CFOs by offering an easy-to-use consumer-style B2B purchasing platform with deep, enterprise-grade spend controls and analysis tools. Premikati offers trusted suppliers with steep discounts on repeat purchases, supplier importing, rebates, automatic approval workflows, pricing thresholds, and money – and time-saving process cost reductions.

If you’re a CFO, you care about your company’s bottom line. If the health, wealth, and profitability of your business is being hindered by less-than-ideal procurement practices, then a marketplace, like Premikati, that offers deep spend visibility and approval controls while also reducing hours needed to manage purchasing tasks may be right for you.  Read on to find out how Premikati Marketplace can increase spend visibility and cut costs in your business.

Know Your Sources

Suppliers are the lifeblood of any business, so it’s important to know that you’re using the right ones. What that means will be different for every business. Sustainability, cost, quality,  relationships, and contract terms all play a role in maintaining a healthy, visible spend and supply chain.

Because Premikati is underpinned by SAP—a leader in sustainability—CFOs can help ensure a healthy supply chain in terms of social and environmental impact as well efficiency via streamlined processes. What does this mean for your bottom line?

“…the majority of Generation Z (54 percent) state that they are willing to spend an incremental 10 percent or more on sustainable products, with 50 percent of Millennials saying the same.” –Greg Petro on Forbes

Plus, Premikati offers new sources of savings across the board through a high-quality, trusted list of suppliers. Many companies see up to 35%  savings on frequently-bought products.

Do you already have a supplier your company trusts? Premikati supports custom catalogs with suppliers you already know with very little overhead to get started.

With Premikati, you not only gain access to a list of reliable suppliers, but also an interface that allows your procurement team to quickly compare prices and aggregate suppliers in one simple, easy-to-use platform.

Reduce Time And Costs

Clunky, outdated buying processes can become time-consuming and burdensome. Every hour wasted on reinventing the proverbial procurement wheel is a billable hour from an employee or contractor, hours that can quickly cut into profitability. Premikati helps you streamline the entire buying process and simplify vendor management, saving you time and money.

Gone are the days of needing a password for every single supplier. Premikati lets users access the entire marketplace from a single user account. That and process automations such as automatic spend approvals can reduce the ad-hoc buying process down to hours instead of days or weeks. Controlled spending also limits costs in predetermined ways that keep spending from spiraling out of control.

Plus, Premikati lets your team quickly and easily see which suppliers they are utilizing for which products and at what price point—this helps reduce buying things you don’t need because procurement wasn’t able to locate a pre-existing contract with a supplier. Easily search product categories and types to see where your money is going or view an automated report at a schedule set by you.

Beyond the 35% savings seen by most companies on products they use often, most also receive a typical rebate of 1% on all Premikati purchases made with your P-card—a system which, itself, reduces unexpected costs.

Control Your Spend

Spend controls with Premikati are as simple as ever. The P-Card lets you set exactly how much can be spent ahead of time. Automated approval workflows and reporting, user access controls, the ability to control specific commodities as well as create price thresholds make spend control and analysis easier than ever before.

Premikati balances the ease of a consumer-grade platform such as Amazon with deep, enterprise-grade control, analysis, and automation tools. This makes for a fast, reliable, and truly visible purchasing experience that increases profitability by cutting costs and heavily reducing time expenditures over analog processes and disparate toolsets.

About Premikati

Get what you really want from your purchasing software. The Premikati Marketplace offers procurement that is as intuitive as online shopping with the robust data of Fortune 100 companies and extensive customization options, all with no IT required and no commitment.

You can order what you want—where, when, and how you want it. Diversity filtering? Sure thing. Support local? Absolutely. We even support custom catalogs and customer-specific vendors.

Merge that with full spend control and visibility, real-time reporting and analytics, custom approval flows and automation, and you’ll find a best-in-class software that’s tailor-made for small- and medium-sized enterprise businesses.

Premikati scales seamlessly with your business with no impact to end-users and no additional training required. We have prices to fit every budget, and we can have you up and running in hours.

All of this with white-glove customer service included at no charge, so you can always trust you can talk to a real person when you need them.

Don’t settle for anything less. Contact us today!

Jul 12
Premikati Marketplace best Procurement Software for SMBs

Don’t Let These 8 Things Happen To Your Procurement Team

By Procurement No Comments

Is your purchasing software pulling its weight? Poorly executed purchasing platforms not only cost you time and money, they put your company at legal and reputational risk. If any of the following sound like you, it might be time to kick your lazy procurement software to the curb and trade up for a real man—uh, business marketplace. We meant business marketplace. 

Spending 19 hours reconciling invoices

PO recon—while it sounds like some cool Navy SEAL mission, the reality is far less glamorous. In 2020, there is literally no reason to manually reconcile purchase orders with invoices or your accounts. Process automation here saves time and prevents costly mistakes, so you can focus on what really matters in your business instead of putting out fires or wasting time using outdated methods. Automated reconciliation ensures that everything matches up all of the time, without you ever needing to think about it. 

Buying from the wrong supplier

Your purchase order is a legally binding contract—so what happens when you buy from the wrong supplier? Not only might you have to adjust the purchase to show the correct supplier (which is going to be a real doozy if you’re manually reconciling invoices and it’s already been reconciled) to keep a proper audit trail, you may also face legal repercussions. 

Alternatively, you may be buying from a supplier that’s wrong for you. Perhaps you could reduce costs by using a supplier for multiple types of purchases in order to facilitate a loyal working relationship. Or, maybe you just picked the supplier that costs way more than the rest. The Premikati Marketplace can help you cut costs by offering new sources of savings via a list of high quality, trusted suppliers—many of which offer up to 35% discounts on frequently purchased products. The right supplier is waiting for you at Premikati Marketplace. Already have a couple of the right suppliers? We can add your own suppliers too!

… Or a supplier you don’t even have a contract with

Maybe your contract has expired. Maybe it was never a valid contract at all because its still sitting in a pile on someone’s desk, waiting to be signed and faxed and filed. Do you know which contracts are active and valid? 

Don’t subject yourself to the legal risks that come with doing business without valid contracts. 

“On average, 94% of tail spend comes from uncontracted suppliers.” —Premikati Marketplace

With Premikati Marketplace, you can automate old, analog systems and see which suppliers you’re working with—with the click of a button—in order to gain both efficiency and visibility.

Buying a mountain of stuff you don’t need

Would your warehouse and office closet make Marie Kondo giggle with maniacal glee? Space is a precious commodity especially as consumers and other businesses expect faster and more personalized experiences with every passing day. Every dollar spent on useless things that you don’t need is a dollar you can’t invest in moving forward with your business or keeping an edge on your competitors. 

With good B2B procurement software, you can easily see what you’ve already bought so you don’t double (or triple!) up on what you need.

Buying things that are probably illegal

You want a supply chain that is socially responsible and legal at every link. The Premikati Marketplace is underpinned by SAP, a world-renowned company that is a leader in sustainability.

Shipping your orders to your house

There’s nothing else to say about this. You know who you are. Prevent it with a good procurement platform like Premikati Marketplace. 

Tight budget with no approvals

Especially if you’re a startup or you’re maximizing growth or perhaps if you’re using a zero-based budget, money can be tight. Competition can be stiff. And sometimes, to make the move that will really help your revenue, differentiate you from a competitor, or skyrocket your growth, you have to make swift decisions. If your purchasing processes are bogged down by archaic methods and you’re waiting by the telegraph—err, email—for your PO approval, guess what? Your opportunity may have already passed. If you were making hand sanitizer in January 2020, you better bet you needed to scale and scale fast before the supplies were gone. 

With a good procurement platform, you can control your spend to the cent but also implement automated purchase approvals. Stop leaky spend and without slowing progress… that’s the dream, eh? 

Multiple logins

How many users and passwords do you really need to fulfill your procurement needs? Stop sacrificing security because Lilly is keeping her password taped to the bottom of her keyboard because she has too many to remember. Free up your tech support from endless verifications and password changes. Keep your purchasing processes safe and efficient by reducing the number of accounts you need for purchases.  With the Premikati Marketplace, each member of your procurement team will only need one login total, not one login for EACH supplier portal.  One and done – quite a nightmare saver for your tech support team.

About Premikati

Get what you really want from your purchasing software. The Premikati Marketplace offers procurement that is as intuitive as online shopping with the robust data of Fortune 100 companies and extensive customization options, all with no IT required and no commitment. 

You can order what you want—where, when, and how you want it. Diversity filtering? Sure thing. Support local? Absolutely. We even support custom catalogs and customer-specific vendors.

Merge that with full spend control and visibility, real-time reporting and analytics, custom approval flows and automation, and you’ll find a best-in-class software that’s tailor-made for small- and medium-sized enterprise businesses. 

Premikati scales seamlessly with your business with no impact to end-users and no additional training required. We have prices to fit every budget, and we can have you up and running in hours. 

All of this with white-glove customer service included at no charge, so you can always trust you can talk to a real person when you need them. 

Don’t settle for anything less. Contact us today!

 

Jun 26
socially conscious supply chain

How to Build a Socially Conscious Supply Chain

By Procurement No Comments

There was a time when the socially conscious supply chain was more of a side dish, or perhaps icing on the cake so to speak. For instance, after profits were made, it was a nice-to-have if a company performed some social good in the process. Well, these days, the icing on the cake is now the main dish when it comes to branding. In fact, consumers and employees alike expect organizations to be socially conscious. How much has this permeated the mainstream? According to EngageForGood.com:

  • 86% of customers want businesses to have a stand on social issues,
  • 77% feel a deeper emotional connection to socially conscious companies relative to businesses following a more traditional methodology,
  • 73% of respondents said they would be more likely to defend a company if it was socially conscious.

The statistics above aren’t the only research compiled on how beneficial it can be for a modern company to engage in socially conscious practices. The returns can come in the form of consumer trust, greater visibility, improved shareholder value, and an increase in employee retention.

The pressure, not just from employees and consumers, but also from investors and shareholders is to embrace socially conscious practices and become more responsible for the safety and wellbeing of every individual affected by any phase along the supply chain.

Thinking of a socially conscious supply chain means incorporating social, good governance, and environmental factors into decision-making and all processes. Further, this is about a long-term strategy for improving the economic, social, and environmental value along every phase of the chain. 

In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council outlined the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and provided these three pillars:

  • The state duty to protect human rights
  • The corporate responsibility to respect human rights
  • Access to remedy for victims of business-related abuses

By deploying a socially conscious supply chain, companies secure their place to operate in a more socially conscious world. 

Now that you know the reasons, here are four ways you can build a socially conscious supply chain.

Adopt a long-term approach

Remember, a socially conscious supply chain isn’t just a trend. As a result, it is crucial to develop initiatives that are designed for today and in the future. It helps to start with an effective business case and to get buy-in from key stakeholders. 

Prioritize long-term growth over short-term gains. It should be a concept that is holistic in nature. Moreover, the focus should be on mitigating risks, branding improvement, and overall cost reduction. Then, implement tracking capabilities to ensure that your supply chain remains socially conscious.

Audit for social conscious protocols

Looking up and down your supply chain, it is vital to determine areas that could become more socially conscious. The objective is to infuse socially responsible practices throughout your supply chain. You can start by screening prospective new suppliers for their processes around

  • Sourcing
  • Social standards
  • Quality 
  • Environmental standards 

Have your supply chain audit your suppliers regularly along those standards. Next, evaluate your suppliers relative to globally-recognized standards around sustainability. Collect data that can be quantifiable and serve as evidence for any decisions you make. 

If there are socially conscious violations in your supply chain practices, you have the data to move forward with any resolutions you make. In addition, you can work closely with your partners to provide training around socially conscious practices not just for the executives but for their employees as well.  

Stay transparent

Consumers want companies to be both transparent and authentic. Naturally, it’s difficult to be authentic without transparency – which is fundamental towards building a socially conscious supply chain. When you can show transparency within your supply chain, you build trust and may even improve your reputation and competitive standing.

To illustrate, many grocers have had to change their purchasing processes over the past decade where they are buying more fresh produce as demand for processed foods continues to wane. Also, many consumers now want to know whether their food was ethically caught and organically grown. The same is true of the coffee industry where customers are moving towards fair trade sourcing practices such as executed by Equal Exchange or Allegro. In terms of the supply chain, the best option is end-to-end transparency.

With this type of transparency, impact assessments can be executed and any associated mitigation can be quickly deployed. Although this strategy may take more upfront investment, it is the preferred approach as opposed to running a supply chain that imposes human rights violations, environmental damage, and is exposed to fraudulent practices. So then, transparency also allows a company to remedy unfavorable scenarios more quickly and not buckle under the strain of bad branding and outdated practices.

Work with minority suppliers

A socially conscious supply chain includes partnerships with minority suppliers. In fact, minority-run businesses have been growing at two times the national average. This is a part of the economy that must be recognized. Additionally, a supplier diversity initiative can positively impact up to 15% of overall earnings.

Not to mention, all suppliers should be treated fairly and offered fair compensation that is on time. Add flexible contract options and onboarding processes, and you’re on your way to a much more socially conscious supply chain.

Final thought

By taking the steps listed above, supply chain business leaders can improve their branding, reduce their environmental impact, enhance their social impact, and secure their license to operate in a more socially conscious marketplace. What other ways can you think of that will help build a socially conscious supply chain?

 

Jun 18
outsourcing

All You Need to Know About Impact Sourcing

By Procurement No Comments

There isn’t any question that inclusive corporate practices and business shared values have been highlighted in recent years as customers increase their search for companies who induce rich social impact throughout their supply chain and workflows. In fact, contemporary organizations risk falling behind the curve if they don’t adopt impact sourcing in their processes.

For several years, companies looked at deploying “social good” policies as a type of afterthought or even icing on the cake. The main focus was profit. Now, things are changing. Many millennials, and gen Z’ers, actively search for businesses who have long-term strategies around social impact.

Today, embracing and embedding social impact into business processes is no longer an option – it is mandatory. Even prospective employees only want to work for companies that have infused social good practices into their overarching policies.

Not to mention, in an increasingly competitive marketplace, consumers have countless options right at their fingertips. In the end, they will choose to patronize a business with values that align with theirs. Now, let’s talk a bit more about impact sourcing.

What is impact sourcing?

Many industries are in the position to improve their business practices. Impact sourcing simply means employing individuals who come from a disadvantaged background, and providing them with opportunities they might not have otherwise received. 

There are billions of people who just can’t access professional business opportunities because they also don’t have access to higher education. For instance, Africa may have the largest workforce on this planet, but they certainly don’t have enough jobs for their populations. Impact sourcing offers employment to people who live in locations with persistently high rates of unemployment. 

Further, these are people who may live in rural areas, or even slums, and don’t have access to secondary education. So then, as these types of people receive better career opportunities – and higher wages – they can actually go to college and be better able to help their family members who are in need.

Impact sourcing is gaining traction

Led by organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), impact sourcing is also proving advantageous for companies who adopt this particular business practice. According to BSR, “Impact sourcing is not philanthropy; it is a business practice that seeks to maximize societal and business outcomes.” There are also some practical applications you can implement within your company. 

  • Focus on the people 

A successful impact sourcing program should not be about the numbers, or even the algorithm, it should be about the people. These are not automated robots, but every employee has unique gifts and talents they can bring to your organization. And, through their tenure with your business, they can spread the benefits throughout their communities. Not to mention, you are accessing a talent pool inundated with motivated individuals. Moreover, you don’t have to change your organization’s values simply because you are hiring in another country or working with a supplier in a disadvantaged area.

  • Business improves through long-term relationships

It always helps to remember that, when it comes to business, the bottom line is still critical. You certainly want to be known as a company who prioritizes social impact. Yet, that shouldn’t be the end all and be all. Your business should still ensure your customers get the quality they’re accustomed to along with the right price and the right customer experience.

Invariably, happy employees are much more productive and they are much more loyal to a company. As a result, they have the potential to become more skilled at their roles which leads to getting a larger amount of work done in less time. The best way to improve happiness and motivation is to offer an opportunity to someone who – under normal circumstances – would not have received such an offer.

Turn your company into a force for good

There is still limited understanding about the various populations – throughout the world – who need more help. In this regard, it takes time and research to determine where your impact sourcing program can make the most impact.

Participate in conversations with people from disadvantaged communities to gain a better understanding of their experiences and challenges. Partner with organizations such as the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC). Currently, the GISC is challenging its member companies to start hiring at least 100,000 workers before the end of 2020. The GISC also offers toolkits for download which include case studies and best practices. Now, you can design your impact sourcing strategy. 

Next, host job fairs in disadvantaged areas. If your company can’t be there physically, then partner with local organizations. Other ways to help include offering guest lectures, online training, and mentorships. Change people’s lives with training and education.

Remember that disadvantaged communities aren’t only found in developing countries. There are disadvantaged individuals in developed countries, as well. 

Final thought

There is no greater feeling than knowing your company can help disadvantaged individuals out of poverty all around the globe. Impact sourcing can provide some stability in war-torn regions when opportunities for career, education, and training increase. When a person feels secure, they also gain a feeling of peace. Just take a look at the change in formerly war-torn regions of southeastern Europe where many citizens now work remotely for companies all over the world. As the global skills gap continues to grow, it’s time to consider the talent outside of the traditional pools.

 

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