Procurement Simplified: Unraveling the Complexities of Procure-to-Pay Technology

Most organizations can agree that the key to a successful business is value creation. Every department is searching for new ways to innovate and increase their value proposition. In procurement a huge opportunity now exists as organizations look to move forward – navigating through and eventually past the COVID-19 crisis.

E-procurement, inventory management, invoicing and everything in-between falls onto the procure-to-pay spectrum and directly in procurement’s wheelhouse. The problem in the past has typically either been a lack of technological adoption for each of these processes, or a fractured approach, with different one-off solutions adopted for some while others are still done manually.

This has ultimately led to a lack of efficiency, transparency, and becomes a waste of money with many applications not integrating together properly and providing overlapping capabilities.

In our white paper with Spend Matters they say, “Organizations that have the ability to consolidate their Procure-to-Pay (P2P) processes in a unified and holistic way will have more encouraging futures than those who do not in the face of current and future challenges of the business world”.

The obvious solution is to consolidate these processes using a comprehensive procure-to-pay suite, like JAGGAER ONE. This would fix any integration issues while also providing transparency, consistency, and increasing overall efficiency by providing powerful solutions across the P2P spectrum and offering a single source of truth for your procurement data.

However, P2P technology is often considered very complex, with many components making up the whole solution, one needs to understand first what P2P really is, and second, how each component combines to fit with the broader business.

To get your 5-year roadmap to elevate procurement’s influence and value with P2P technology:

Download our white paper with Spend Matters.

What is P2P?

Spend Matters says “A P2P software suite integrates and automates the entire back-office lifecycle of requisitioning, purchasing, receiving, paying, and accounting for goods and services. By creating standard workflows between buyers, procurement and accounting departments, a P2P solution should provide more transparency into, and control over, spend and should create a more congenial relationship between all stakeholders”.

To simplify things, it is better to view P2P as two main parts: e-procurement and invoice-to-pay. A true procure-to-pay suite (P2P) combines these processes to offer a single source of truth and an easy-to-use application. Each individual solution follows a cycle that integrates several adjacent processes and tools together to produce a seamless and efficient procurement process.

To do this effectively the P2P suite needs to integrate with your other systems and ERP to incorporate that data and provide actionable insights. Of course, each piece can be used individually but that will run the risk of integration issues, overlapping capabilities, and lead to a much more complicated system that can deter professionals from using the technology.

Procure-to-pay suites can offer a myriad of benefits and advantages for the organization if done correctly. The real beauty behind a comprehensive suite is that each of the individual parts work in unison to provide transparency, reduce spend risks, increase agility, provide supplier information and so much more. Combining this with new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to bring actionable insights and recommendations and a P2P suite lays a solid, powerful, and innovative foundation for procurement to build upon for years to come.

A Peek Behind the P2P Curtain

Today’s powerful applications will always be complex to unravel – at least on the backend. Thousands of lines of code, algorithms, and artificial intelligence that lives up to the name can make the average professionals head spin. But that does not mean that it needs to be complicated to use.

At JAGGAER our motto is ‘Procurement Simplified’, in short, we are striving to remove the cloud of complexity that procurement technology seems to carry with it.

We want to create a product that is both easy to use but incredibly powerful. In order to live up to that moniker it’s only fitting that we give you a peek behind the P2P curtain and how JAGGAER is bringing simplicity to the table.

Because of the Saas model and cloud-based nature of JAGGAER ONE, these solutions are now affordable, flexible, and technically versatile. Also, due to it being a comprehensive suite it can bring automation and ROI almost instantly, or it can be gradually adopted as the budget and overall growth plan allows.

While gradually adopting may see a slower return, organizations can still see the full benefits over time as JAGGAER ONE offers solutions for all spend categories and the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle with all underlying solutions working in an interconnected process.

JAGGAER is now focused on developing P2P capabilities in four main areas in order to push procurement and purchasing into a fully strategic role. These investments are designed to produce a suite that will bring the most value to organizations while also being user friendly and easily adopted across all departments.

• Developing both indirect and direct P2P processes within a single platform to ensure a collaborative environment for both internal and external stakeholders that focuses on compliance across the board.
• Taking the lead in payment management and processing that keeps up with the modern and ever-changing payments landscape, focusing on improving the productivity and the financial health of the supply chain.
• Investing heavily into AI to develop an application that learns over time using all data sources to provide relevant, knowledgeable, and actionable insights and recommendations to users to assist in all activities across the P2P process.
• Empower and encourage an open business network to effectively bring together a community of buyers, suppliers, and third parties to create a dynamic and intelligent marketplace.

To learn more about the future of P2P technology and the value that your business can get today read our white paper with Spend Matters, The Future of P2P: A 5-Year Vision for Elevating the Value and Influence of Procurement.

Download Now!