Procurement

An Effective Procurement Process For Finance Teams

Published on
/

21 March 2023

Finance teams play a critical role in ensuring an effective procurement process and can help businesses optimize procurement spend, manage risks, and achieve their financial goals.

Procurement is the process of acquiring goods, services, or works from an external source. The procurement process typically involves a couple of steps. The process usually starts by identifying the need for a product or service and this is done by the requesting department or project team and in many cases, it is usually advised by the finance department. 

Companies will then develop specifications that describe the required product or service in detail. This includes the quality, quantity, delivery date, and any other specific requirements. Identifying potential suppliers is followed and this involves issuing a request for information (RFI) or a request for proposal (RFP) to potential suppliers.

The procurement team then evaluates the responses received from potential suppliers based on various criteria such as price, quality, delivery time, and supplier reputation. This will then bring about the negotiation of terms and conditions of the purchase with the selected supplier, including price, delivery, warranties, and payment terms.

Once the negotiations are complete, the team awards the contract to the selected supplier and monitors the supplier’s performance to ensure that the products or services are delivered on time and meet the specifications. The team will finally close the contract when the products or services have been delivered and paid for in accordance with the agreed terms and conditions.

Throughout the procurement process, it is important that companies follow ethical and legal guidelines, including ensuring fair and open competition among potential suppliers, avoiding conflicts of interest, and complying with applicable laws and regulations.

Developing An Effective Procurement Process

Finance teams play a critical role in ensuring an effective procurement process. Here are some ways finance teams can contribute to an effective procurement process:

Develop a clear procurement policy: Finance teams can help develop a clear and comprehensive procurement policy that outlines the procurement process and procedures, roles and responsibilities, and ethical and legal guidelines. This policy can help ensure consistency and transparency in the procurement process.

Define procurement budgets: Finance teams can work with the requesting departments to define the procurement budgets and ensure that they are aligned with the overall organizational goals and financial objectives.

Establish cost-saving strategies: Finance teams can work with the procurement team to identify cost-saving strategies, such as volume discounts, supplier consolidation, and standardized purchasing processes, that can help optimize procurement spend.

Implement effective financial controls: Finance teams can implement effective financial controls, such as purchase order approvals, invoice matching, and payment reconciliation, to ensure that procurement transactions are accurate and comply with financial policies and procedures.

Analyze procurement data: Finance teams can analyze procurement data, such as spend analysis, supplier performance, and contract compliance, to identify areas for improvement and optimize procurement processes.

Conduct supplier risk assessments: Finance teams can conduct supplier risk assessments to identify potential risks, such as financial instability, regulatory non-compliance, or reputational issues, that could impact the procurement process and take appropriate measures to mitigate these risks.

By working closely with the procurement team, finance teams can ensure an effective procurement process that optimizes spend, manages risks, and aligns with organizational goals and financial objectives.

The Finance Team’s Role In The Procurement Process

It is important that companies do not underestimate the crucial role the finance team plays in the procurement process. Some of the areas the finance team handles in the procurement process include budgeting and forecasting, financial control, payment processing, risk management, reporting and analysis and compliance. 

Budgeting and Forecasting: The finance team works with the procurement team to develop and manage the procurement budget. They may also provide forecasting and analysis to ensure that the procurement process is aligned with the overall financial objectives of the organization.

Financial Control: The finance team is responsible for establishing financial controls to ensure that procurement transactions are accurate and comply with financial policies and procedures. This may include approval of purchase orders, matching invoices to purchase orders, and reconciliation of payments.

Payment Processing: The finance team is responsible for processing payments to suppliers and ensuring that they are made in a timely and accurate manner.

Risk Management: The finance team is responsible for identifying and managing financial risks associated with the procurement process, such as supplier insolvency, fraudulent activity, or compliance issues. They may also conduct supplier risk assessments to evaluate the financial stability and credibility of potential suppliers.

Reporting and Analysis: The finance team is responsible for providing regular reporting and analysis on procurement activities, including spend analysis, supplier performance, and compliance with financial policies and procedures.

Compliance: The finance team ensures that the procurement process is compliant with applicable laws, regulations, and financial policies. They may also monitor supplier compliance with contractual terms and conditions.

The finance team plays a critical role in ensuring that the procurement process is effective, efficient, and aligned with the financial objectives of the organization. By working closely with the procurement team, the finance team can optimize procurement spend, manage risks, and ensure compliance with financial policies and procedures.

In conclusion, an effective procurement process is critical for organizations to optimize spend, manage risks, and achieve their financial objectives. The finance team plays a crucial role in ensuring that the procurement process is efficient, transparent, and compliant with financial policies and procedures. By working closely with the procurement team, the finance team can develop clear procurement policies, establish financial controls, manage budgets, process payments, conduct risk assessments, and provide regular reporting and analysis. 

By leveraging their financial expertise, the finance team can help the organization optimize procurement spend, manage risks, and achieve their financial goals. An effective procurement process requires collaboration and coordination between the procurement team and the finance team, as well as other stakeholders across the organization. Ultimately, an effective procurement process can help organizations enhance their competitiveness, improve their financial performance, and achieve their strategic objectives.

Warbur Pincus Announces Acquisition Of Pharma Intelligence From Informa

Published on
/

DigitalCFO Newsroom | 11 February 2022

Mubadala Investment Company joins Warburg Pincus in the investment to extend the company’s leading position in the pharmaceutical data and analytics market.

Warburg Pincus, a leading global growth investor, today announced the acquisition of Pharma Intelligence, a leading provider of specialist intelligence, data, and software for clinical trials, drug development, and regulatory compliance, from Informa PLC, the international B2B markets knowledge services and business intelligence group. Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi based investment company, joins Warburg Pincus in the investment. The investors plan to extend the company’s leading position in the pharmaceutical data and analytics market, investing in the creation of innovative products for its customers. Informa will retain 15% ownership in the company.

Pharma Intelligence is a leading operator in the $22 billion global pharma and life sciences analytics markets. The company holds the leading position in the clinical trial intelligence space, providing insights on patient enrollment and demographics, trial progress, individual trial sites and investigators for more than 375,000 clinical trials across 180 countries. The company’s solutions are used by 3,000 pharmaceutical companies and CROs in their clinical trial design, commercial strategy, and regulatory compliance processes to maximize the likelihood of success of introducing products to market.

The acquisition includes Informa’s full portfolio of specialist brands which includes the Citeline suite of products, Trialtrove, Sitetrove, Pharmaprojects and Citeline branded products, as well as Biomedtracker, Clinerion, Datamonitor Healthcare, Pink Sheet, Scrip, Skipta, and TrialScope.

Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, Informa PLC, said “We received significant interest in the Pharma Intelligence business. We are delighted to partner with Warburg Pincus and share their view on its future growth potential, hence, we welcomed an agreement that represented value today and growth and value tomorrow.”

Adarsh Sarma, co-head of Europe and Chandler Reedy, Head of Strategic Investments at Warburg Pincus said ”Pharma Intelligence is an increasingly important company with tremendous growth potential. We believe that demand for its services will increase as the world becomes more data driven and focused on using predictive analytics to solve health issues and major diseases. As one of the world’s largest investors in pharma, health tech and b2b information services, Warburg Pincus is uniquely placed to help the company achieve its growth potential. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Informa as we invest in and grow the company, building on the great work undertaken already.”

Jay Nadler, Senior Adviser to Warburg Pincus said ”Pharma Intelligence’s services are of vital importance to the pharma, biotech, and healthcare community. It’s a fast-growing company with outstanding products and people, and a commitment to best-in-class service with deep expertise in sectors that Warburg Pincus understands extremely well. We look forward to partnering with the company’s employees and customers, working together to drive innovation to introduce more efficiency into the drug development lifecycle.”

David Reis and Amr Kronfol, Managing Directors at Warburg Pincus said “As a leading growth investor, the potential for innovation and growth are central to our investment approach and this applies to our strategy for Pharma Intelligence. We will increase focus and investment for innovation and product development to address important customer needs, working in partnership with Informa, Jay Nadler, and the Pharma Intelligence team.”

Warburg Pincus has a strong record of investing in innovative healthcare technology companies, including Aetion, Insilico, GHX, Experity, Nuance Communications, and Modernizing Medicine. Notable investments in information services include, Accelya, Interactive Data Corporation, Fortius, Gordian and MLM Information Services. Warburg Pincus has also undertaken several successful recent carve-outs, including Constructionline / Fortius from Capita and 1&1 Internet from United Internet.

The acquisition is expected to complete within the first half of 2022, subject to any relevant regulatory clearances.

Consus Global Partners with Westfall to drive sourcing & procurement efficiencies

Published on
/

DigitalCFO Newsroom | 7 January 2021

Westfall Technik, a global leading plastics manufacturer is pleased to announce details of its partnership with Consus Global, a trusted global supply chain solutions provider to drive procurement efficiencies and manage their spend data with a target of multi-million dollar savings for Westfall through their Sourcing Services.

Westfall Technik, Inc. provides plastics manufacturing solutions. The Company offers solutions to the medical, packaging, and consumer goods industries.

As part of this initiative, Westfall has engaged Consus Global, a leading global integrated supply chain advisory and services organization, which is expected to deliver significant ongoing cost savings, and improved operational effectiveness.

“Westfall is excited to initiate this journey with Consus Global and look forward to the supply chain optimization, achieving our targeted cost savings, improving our supplier collaboration through automated tools, and overall process efficiency in our Procurement Function,” says Tom Mannion, Advisor to the CEO.

“Westfall Technik follows the philosophy of doing business by being nimble, scalable and comprehensive,” said Saurabh Mehta, Managing Partner of Consus Global. “The company’s focus has always been about delivering exceptional customer experience and delivering lasting customer value. Coincidentally, this is the Consus ethos as well. Cost savings, improved supplier collaboration, and better spend visibility are the key pillars of Consus’ sourcing services. Customer experience and a value- driven approach to cost savings are what we thrive on at Consus. This engagement represents the start of a strategic partnership with the explicit goal of improving Westfall Technik’s profitability and shareholder value. We are excited to be partners in the Westfall Technik journey.”

Esker to Acquire Majority Stake in Market Dojo, Enhancing Its Procure-to-Pay Suite

Published on
//

DigitalCFO Newsroom | 6 January 2021

British startup Market Dojo revolutionizes procurement standards by offering a 100% cloud eSourcing solution

Esker, a global cloud platform and leader in AI-driven process automation solutions for finance and customer service functions, today announced that it has reached an agreement with the shareholders of Market Dojo Limited, a UK-based eProcurement software company. The agreement states that Esker will acquire 50.1% of the shares and voting rights in the company effective Q1 2022 and the remainder of Market Dojo shares after a period of four years.

Market Dojo’s eSourcing cloud solution was created to address the need for structured and digitized processes in procurement. Designed by procurement professionals, Market Dojo’s unique on-demand solution enables users to centralize information, negotiate the best value for goods and services, and select the right suppliers — all without requiring a complex and costly implementation process. In a world where supply chain management is a key factor for success, but can also often contain strategic risks, control of the sourcing process is critical for companies of all sizes.

Esker believes that the integration of procurement, accounting and financial services is a major trend in the Procure-to-Pay (P2P) market. In addition to developing its own P2P solutions, Esker addresses the demands of the P2P automation market through a combination of targeted acquisitions and value-added partnerships. The merger offers Market Dojo significant international development opportunities for its solutions. It also strengthens Esker’s competitiveness in its traditional markets by integrating eSourcing as a new key functional area, including reverse auctions, request for quotations (RFQ), request for proposals (RFP) management, supplier onboarding, etc.

“Ardent Partners research1 has shown that more finance and procurement executives prefer to make holistic, suite-level investments instead of managing a series of one-off solution providers,” said Andrew Bartolini, Founder and Chief Research Officer at Ardent Partners. “Given that, it makes great sense for a best-in-class ePayables provider like Esker to extend their offering with the acquisition of Market Dojo.”

Based in Bristol, England, Market Dojo has 20 employees and over 160 customers, 60% of which are outside its domestic market, including France, the United States and the Middle East. The company has a trailing twelve-month sales revenue of 1.3M GBP, growing 30% annually.

The acquisition will be completed in two stages. Following the completion of customary due diligence in Q1 2022, Esker will acquire 50.1% of the share capital and voting rights in Market Dojo. At the end of a four-year collaboration period between the two companies, Esker will acquire the remaining 49.9% based on the same valuation multiple used for the first stage (13 times annual recurring cloud revenue). This final stage assumes no drastic change in market conditions regarding the valuation of technology companies. During these four years, Market Dojo will operate as a standalone business unit while offering Esker and Market Dojo’s customers a leading P2P ecosystem, with Market Dojo leveraging Esker’s strong back-office, operational infrastructure and international presence

This two-stage acquisition process will allow Market Dojo’s founders and employees to accelerate their development while remaining directly incentivized to grow the business. To strengthen the involvement of Market Dojo’s management in Esker’s global success, 20% of the consideration paid will be in Esker shares, including a two-year lock-up commitment at each step.

“It’s a delight to join forces with Esker,” said Alun Rafique, CEO and Co-founder at Market Dojo. “There is incredible synergy, not just in our solutions, but in the people and culture. The acquisition provides a great opportunity for our customers and partners. 2022 will be an exciting year for anyone interested in a P2P ecosystem and Market Dojo will be able to strengthen its position as the market leading provider of on-demand eSourcing and supplier engagement solutions.”

“We are pleased to welcome Market Dojo to the Esker family,” said Jean-Michel Bérard, CEO at Esker. “This acquisition provides new growth opportunities in a developing market and strengthens Esker’s positioning in the global P2P arena. Additionally, Market Dojo is an excellent illustration of Esker’s strategy to invest in organic growth combined with targeted acquisitions that offer a high potential for growth.”

1.Ardent’s New Report on Procurement Technology. Ardent Partners is a research and advisory firm focused on defining and advancing the strategies, processes, and technologies that drive Best-in-Class performance for procurement and finance departments within the enterprise.For more information and to access Ardent Partner research, please visit www.ardentpartners.com.

About Market Dojo

Market Dojo helps procurement professionals worldwide solve inefficient sourcing and supplier management processes by digitizing these activities quickly and easily. More flexible and cost-effective than legacy software and more effective than emails and spreadsheets, Market Dojo empowers procurement professionals to control their costs, mitigate risk and centralize data. Unlike other software providers, Market Dojo provides transparent, on-demand pricing and can be entirely self-service. With free access, users can make informed decisions before they commit. To find out more, visit MarketDojo.com and follow Market Dojo on LinkedIn.

About Esker

Esker is a global cloud platform built to unlock strategic value for finance and customer service professionals, and strengthen collaboration between companies by automating the cash conversion cycle. Esker’s solutions incorporate technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive increased productivity, enhanced visibility, reduced fraud risk, and improved collaboration with customers, suppliers and internally. Esker operates in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific with global headquarters in Lyon, France, and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information on Esker and its solutions, visit www.esker.com.sg. Follow Esker on LinkedIn @EskerAsia and join the conversation on the Esker blog at blog.esker.com.sg.

GuocoLand, OCBC Bank and Doxa to Pilot First End-to-End Digital Procurement and Payments Workflow Solution

Published on
//
  • Enterprise digital platform streamlines procurement and payments workflow processes by connecting all parties in the real estate value chain 
  • Singapore’s first developer-centred solution to start with luxury residential project Meyer Mansion 

Qinthara Fasya | 17 August 2021

GuocoLand Limited (“GuocoLand”), Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited (“OCBC Bank”) and local fintech company Doxa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a strategic partnership to develop and pilot the built environment industry’s first end-to-end digital workflow solution to streamline the procurement and payments workflow processes for development projects.  

Known as “Doxa Connex for Developers”, the platform connects property developers and other parties – banks, contractors, suppliers and consultants –  in the built environment value chain. This solution will be ready in October 2021 and its first use will be supporting Meyer Mansion, GuocoLand’s luxury freehold condominium project by year-end. OCBC Bank is the sole lender for the Meyer Mansion project and one of GuocoLand’s principal banks. 

Today’s development project procurement and payment processing processes are still paper-based and labor-intensive. As a result, procedures are time-consuming, and project cashflow updates are done by hand.

Contractors frequently send hard-copy invoices as part of the procurement and payment processing procedures. These bills are paid by developers using either an existing loan or sales revenues held in the development project account. To do so, developers are frequently asked to provide hard-copy bills to their banks, along with a hard-copy certification of these invoices by an architect or external consultant based on the worth of work completed.

For all parties, a significant amount of time is therefore spent on data entry and manual processing. This is compounded by the sheer volume of invoices. A single development project could involve more than a thousand invoices, from the main construction contractor’s invoices to invoices for the development’s consultants, marketing costs, show flat expenses or legal fees. Doxa Connex for Developers resolves this pain point by digitalising the entire process end-to-end. Using the platform, contractors can create and send e-invoices to developers; architects and external consultants can carry out the required certification via an e-certification process; and developers can send both the e-invoices and e-certifications to their banks to trigger payment. 

Developers will also benefit from the platform’s capacity to turn quotations into purchase orders and create cost analysis reports, giving them a better picture of their cash flow in real-time. Doxa Connex for Developers uses workflow automation to keep track of huge volumes of data, allowing for better project visibility and full transparency in the procurement and payments workflow processes.

Contractors can expect easier and faster submission of claims for payment with the implementation of Doxa Connex for Developers. Time is saved as there is no need to courier hard-copy documents, and the chances of documents getting lost are eliminated.  

Digitalising the procurement and payments workflow processes in the built environment value chain is a needed step in the right direction to transform the industry. Piloting Doxa Connex for Developers for Meyer Mansion will automate workflow processes and pave the way for a more efficient, transparent platform for future developments. This digital innovation, developed in collaboration with OCBC and Doxa, will prove to be a game-changer and also future-proof the parties in the value chain from disruptive events such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Andrew Chew, Chief Financial Officer of GuocoLand Singapore

This MOU and pilot project is part of GuocoLand’s latest digitalisation drive, where a series of strategic partnerships with local tech companies will see up to 20 digital-related projects being implemented over the next two years. In addition to the MOUs with Airsquire and Groundup.ai, this is the third MOU signed between GuocoLand and its partners in recent weeks. All three MOUs are the cumulative efforts of Enterprise Singapore’s efforts to drive industry transformation and enhance the capabilities of local enterprises. 

Ms Elaine Lam, Head of Global Corporate Banking, OCBC Bank, said: “The built environment ecosystem is one that OCBC has long been active in and we are glad to contribute to the digitalisation of this sector by working with major industry player GuocoLand, and fintech Doxa, to jointly develop Doxa Connex for Developers. Such collaborations, which leverage technology to bring the entire value chain together, are necessary for industry transformation and support Singapore’s Smart Nation plan. We will continue to work with like-minded partners on many more opportunities that leverage digital technologies to improve productivity and reduce reliance on manual processes. This collaboration is aligned with OCBC’s longer term sustainability goals.” 

Mr Edmund Ng, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Doxa, said: “This partnership with GuocoLand and OCBC will allow us to pilot Doxa Connex for Developers to overcome the many challenges in procurement and payments workflow processes for real estate developers. While our initial supplier payment solution helped to digitalise the procurement process from main contractors to sub-contractors and their suppliers, we saw an opportunity to move upstream and connect developers seamlessly to this process as well. The success of this pilot will see exponential cost and time savings, and an increase in visibility and productivity across all stakeholders, as they will be all digitally connected in a single space.”