The latest in Aberdeen Group’s Benchmark Survey’s for eProcurement, sponsored by Wax Digital, identified that many purchasing organisations are still struggling with supplier product data issues. 

Indeed, of the 3,987 suppliers that the average eProcurement enabled enterprise trades with for its indirect spend, only 274 (less that 7%) were found to have electronic catalogues available for users to search and select – this from a community of respondents more than 600 strong. 

Although enterprises have proven successful at driving more ‘spend under management’, they have not been nearly as successful in expanding the base of suppliers transacted through the eProcurement system. Only 27% of the catalogue spend of an enterprise is available to the requisitioning community in existing online catalogues, and nearly 34% of the requisitions generated in the eProcurement system are not based on a catalogue – i.e. the requestor simply describes the item to be purchased rather than including a part number, price and unit of measure.  

The real problem here tends to be one of resourcing. The Aberdeen study throws up a telling statistic here: ‘Best-in-Class enterprises, on average, with 69% of their catalogue maintenance done outside the enterprise, rely more heavily on external suppliers and solution providers to manage their existing catalogues and other supplier enablement activities than All Other enterprises.’ 

Trying to do it alone with supplier on-boarding, often with a relatively small and very busy team, invariably means a concentration on just top tier suppliers. This can accommodate the vast majority of spend, and is obviously the place to start, but purchasing organisations have to chase the entire community for the best possible results and that really means looking to a specialist adoption services team to drive the programme through the chain.