In Aberdeen’s new report on Advanced Sourcing and Negotiation, it identified tendencies of what is considered Laggard corporate frameworks for procurement. If you find yourself confirming these problems consistently, it might be time to think about eSourcing tools to help.

Process: The level of sourcing standardization across the enterprise and the relative maturity of the processes in place.

*No formal enterprise sourcing process
*Process is manual
*No visibility
*Process has variability

Organization: The centralization of sourcing efforts within the enterprise. Organizational structure, skills, and decision-making alignment across the company. Program visibility by executive leadership; business stakeholders’ engagement.

*No formal sourcing organization
*Separation of direct and indirect materials may be needed

Knowledge: Level of strategic sourcing, category-specific, supply market, and technology expertise; platform to leverage knowledge across extended organization.

*Limited eSourcing capability
*Limited strategic sourcing capability

Technology: Existence of sourcing automation, extended strategic sourcing automation to include spend analysis and contracts; advanced sourcing capabilities.

*Limited exposure to eSourcing applications
*Limited use of other supply management technologies
*No advanced sourcing traction

The report also covers Industry Average and Best in Class companies. It is available free with this link.