Transforming Procurement Processes: The Power of Power Platform
Reading time ~10 minutes
Introduction
Why oh why are there so many excel files? Or so many different systems? Or datasets that don’t appear to connect together?
Accessing procurement insights should be straightforward, however it doesn’t seem to be the case for a lot of businesses. When I started in my first procurement job, I shuddered at the thought of being asked who was the top 10% spend for category X, or finding out how many times Helen from HR had entered the wrong cost centre. This was because our data & systems were simply not optimised - the team were not aware of the tools they had available at their fingertips that could make the most our of their Coupa & SAP systems. The tools I am referring to here are those found in Microsoft’s Power Platform.
Power Platform is a collection of tools consisting of Power BI, Power Automate, Power Apps & Dataverse that most organisations usually already have available at their fingertips. A simple way to confirm this is to check whether your company uses an outlook email system: if so, then you are very likely to have access to these tools for free.
As a procurement professional, if your heart rate hasn’t already elevated at the thought of optimising your data & processes for free - without investing in costly new software - then maybe this isn’t the career for you.
Just kidding! Although, if you are not convinced yet, let’s dig a bit deeper in the following sections to how these tools off-the-shelf tools can transform your business.
Procurement Process Pain Points
Procurement teams are very busy. Between juggling approvals, tracking spend, managing suppliers, and telling Susan she can’t spend £10k on a “team event” (yes, this happened once), there is usually no time left to improve & automate the manual work.
Here are some of the common challenges we see:
Manual data entry and rekeying between systems (and often, there is difficulty with linking datasets together).
Long approval chains with no transparency to where the approval is currently sitting.
Reactive action between procurement and stakeholders, rather than proactive (think overspend v.s. underspend).
Difficulty accessing real-time spend or supplier performance data.
Clunky spreadsheets and inconsistent processes across teams.
These inefficiencies seriously slow down the procurement cycle, increase risk of non compliance, and take your team away from strategic work (the actual cost saving element of procurement).
How Power Platform Solves These Pain Points
Power Platform gives your procurement team the flexibility to create automated, tailored solutions around the way you already work. It can connect with almost any system you already use - including SAP, Coupa, Excel or SharePoint.
Below we will revisit each pain point above and describe how Power Platform can be used to improve & automate each and every one:
1) Manual data entry and rekeying between systems.
We can leverage Power Apps here to standardise your data inputs and ensure that your data is automatically sent to where it needs to go (in a consistent way). A good use case to highlight would be to linking back invoices to PO requests - if your data is consistent, then everything ties back nicely and you don’t need to spend valuable time reconciling data at month end.
2) Long approval chains with no transparency to where the approval is currently sitting.
Using Power Automate, you can create intelligent workflows that route purchase requests, contract approvals, or supplier reviews through to the right people, based on logic you control (e.g. budgets, departments or approval authority). This dramatically reduces email chains, increases visibility and avoids bottlenecks.
We could even leverage Power BI here to clearly visualise to the requestor who the approval is currently sitting with and set up automated email alerts when approvals have been received (or rejected)!
3) Reactive action between procurement and stakeholders, rather than proactive (think overspend v.s. underspend).
Imagine a world where you can easily track supplier spend v.s. budgets, and can immediately see in which areas of the business you run the risk of overspending. That world is within reach if you leverage Power BI. Power BI can easily integrate with your ERP system (SAP, Coupa), and can send alerts to your team if spend crosses over a threshold.
4) Difficulty accessing real-time spend or supplier performance data.
This is our favourite - an all inclusive Power BI dashboard that tells you exactly what your spend is, who your top suppliers are, who is raising the most POs, when your contracts need renewing, and much more - all refreshing automatically to bring you the latest insights. Mmmm… satisfying.
5) Clunky spreadsheets and inconsistent processes across teams.
We hate excel spreadsheets. Well, hate is a strong word, - they do still have their purpose - but they should only really be used for quick analysis. No team can function efficiently if everyone is working from different spreadsheets - and let’s not get started on figuring out who’s data is actually correct.
Power BI is the way forward here again - you can refresh your data automatically several times a day and ensure your team is all working from one source of truth.
These tools sit alongside your existing systems, so we can get results quickly - no lengthy implementation projects or excessive change controls needed!
Better Governance and Compliance
Beyond speed and convenience, Power Platform also strengthens procurement governance.
Each solution we have built in previous roles include features such as:
Approval trails
Time-stamped records
User access controls
Audit logs
Email / Teams alerts to notify of issues (e.g. overspend).
This should give procurement teams peace of mind and a clear view of who did what & when - without relying on email trails or manual trackers.
The Future of Procurement Is Automated
Procurement is evolving from a cost-control function to a strategic enabler of value, risk management, and innovation. But to play that role, teams need digital tools that are adaptable, collaborative, and easy to use. Power Platform enables exactly that.
Additionally, we strongly believe that work should be stimulating - which is not achieved by manually refreshing data in excel files. Elimination of these manual activities lets your employees use the creative side of their brain and ultimately leads to a happier, more engaged workforce that will take your business to the next level.
Let’s Talk Procurement Process Automation
If the above resonated with you, we offer free 30-minute consultations to help you scope out further where Power Platform could help automate your Procurement operations. In these sessions, we will talk through your current setup, any pain points, and show you what automation could look like for your team.
If you want to go further, we can support you with building these applications. We are up-front about our costs, competitive, and can guarantee it will be cheaper than investing in new software (which often come with annual licence costs)!
So if that sounds good… hit the button below! We look forward to meeting you & discussing further.