By Grace Nam, Strategic Solutions Manager at Laserfiche
Energy price hikes. The cost-of-living crisis. War in Europe. Brexit. Staff shortages. Mini-budget turmoil. The risk of recession. Even aftershocks from the pandemic … Have businesses everfaced so many disruptions at once? Probably not, and especially not just before the pre-Christmas ‘golden quarter’ — the most important, hectic trading period of the year.
Business leaders may feel despondent at the current prospect of meeting festive demand. But while disruptions will always occur, they no longer need to derail your work. Supply chain challenges of the past have inspired new tools that can help managers build digital resilience and reinforce procurement processes, ensuring businesses can get as close to what they need, when they need it, in a cost-effective manner.
It all begins with the implementation of smart processes. Cloud-enabled tools — like content management that controls business processes and organises documents and metadata stored on multiple servers, and automated business operations that empower workers to take on more impactful work — help to build near disruption-resilient production pipelines that can withstand even unforeseen obstacles. So, let’s take a look at the operational challenges you might face this winter — and how you can use overcome them by using smart technology.
Bottlenecks within procurement
Within manufacturing, procurement is an irreplaceable part of operations. And the procurement pipeline is the lifecycle of contracts to be re-procured, plus new procurement projects to be finalised within a set period.
This pipeline involves various activities — from sourcing raw materials, to processing contracts, to performing quality and regulatory assurance. But today’s scattered technologies, complex processes, siloed information, and rising material costs mean manufacturers are at a higher risk of supply chain disruption than ever.
Data transparency and visibility are crucial to navigating these disruptions. Managers must re-evaluate the continuity of their operations and data security. Are you ready to pivot with sudden market shifts? Can you ensure your latest processes still comply with organisational and industrial regulations? In today’s ultra-competitive landscape, building adaptability, efficiency and resilience into the procurement pipeline is crucial to a business’s continued success.
Streamlining procurement processes
Creating operational efficiency within procurement usually involves gaining more control of critical documents and data. Traditionally, this would mean manually scrutinising documentation, risking human error, data silos, a lack of structure, and delays. Instead, it’s far simpler to automate the process by harnessing enterprise content management (ECM) software.
Today’s organisations are dealing with a deluge of data — 60% of remote employees say that they spend more time looking for documents and data than sending email; while nearly 90% spend time during the workday searching for documents. Leading ECM systems enable the electronic capture of procurement paperwork and secure storage in a single, easily accessible online location. They can also automatically place files into relevant folders and notify individuals when a document needs their attention, enable the simultaneous viewing and editing of documents by multiple stakeholders on multiple platforms, and even automate records management for instant adherence to payment terms and conditions.
Using an ECM system, business leaders can create a consistent modern workplace in which employees can reclaim time from these repetitive activities to take on more value-added, fulfilling tasks.
Turning efficiency into excellence
Once a business’s processes have become more resilient to disruption, managers can focus on improvements that boost performance and profitability. According to Laserfiche’s “Industry Research: Digitalization of Document-Centric Workflows”, almost half (42%) of respondents indicated their organisation is unable to keep track of real-time workflows, hampering lucrative progress within their supply chains.
Fortunately, tools like robotic process automation (RPA) speed up procurement by synchronising data across unstructured content and multiple applications in workflow processes. With RPA, manufacturers can define and automatically execute various rule-based tasks to reduce errors and improve productivity.
Then, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) instantly extract important data from procurement files, turning them into structured content and even enabling fuzzy searches so users can find the information they need, whenever they need it. These content capture, including handwritten capture functionality, approaches and advanced machine learning analytics also highlight real-time data and supplier performance indicators such as on-time delivery, pricing trends, and quality of materials.
With improved visibility of this data, you can make more informed decisions around suppliers, gain a 360-degree view of production performance, and capitalise on any opportunities uncovered to stay far ahead of your competitors. Today, there are low-cost solutions for organisations to truly focus on justifying ROI and accel digital transformation (DX).
Preparing procurement for the unexpected
Unfortunately, the volatility of today’s economic landscape means more unexpected challenges are near guaranteed. So, manufacturers must strategise in advance on how they are going to deal with the next disruption — whatever it may be. Managers need to plan how their team is going to evaluate and streamline supplier performance, how they’re going to onboard new vendors in an emergency, and how they’ll quickly inspect raw materials and track compliance requirements.
This requires the creation of a modern and agile work environment. Modern workers, particularly those from the Millennial and Gen Z generations, prefer to work in more efficient, agile, and structured ways. Leveraging cloud-based management systems enables this by offering full transparency throughout the procurement process. They help teams to easily review vendor performance trends, build relationships with new suppliers, and prevent inventory shortages — building resilience into operations, regardless of disruptions.
With cloud platforms, managers can pivot work processes around the latest set of obstacles. Then, stakeholders can iteratively deploy workarounds and improve compliance with industry and environmental regulations. By building your latest production pipeline on the cloud, you can keep your business moving in any situation, on any device, at any time.
