How far are procurement organizations on their digitalization journey? What are their priorities, challenges and lessons learned?
The new survey “Digital Transformation in Procurement”, conducted by CAMELOT’s procurement specialists, sheds light on the status quo of procurement organization’s digital transformation. Participants were 50 procurement executives from globally active organizations of different sizes, representing a variety of industries with an emphasis on chemical (26 %) and manufacturing (24 %).
According to the survey results, enhancing the level of digitalization in procurement is a top priority for 50 % of procurement organizations. However, so far, up to 98 % face difficulties in pursuing this ambition by demonstrating only a very low to medium current level of digitalization.
The study highlights the need to drive the further development of procurement strategy hand in hand with digitalization and with a strong emphasis on change management. Underutilized data (71 %), overall usage of outdated technology (51 %) and lack of collaboration within the company (36 %) are some of the challenges procurement is currently facing. Half of the study participants identify change management, leadership engagement and know-how build-up as critical success factors for any future digitalization initiative.
Procurement executives clearly indicate their expectations to achieve process excellence (75 %) and cost reduction (59 %) as a result of digitalization projects.
In summary, the study reveals a clear message to procurement organizations: Strategy and people need to be put first to boost the digital transformation journey.
We would like to thank Wolf Göhler and Albena Bogoeva for their contribution to this article.
