With over 200+ Procurement Leaders sharing their views, The Hackett Group has come out with a comprehensive Procurement Agenda for 2015. What are the major areas of Procurement Focus? What’s on priority? What kind of budgets is the market looking at? What’s the bottom & top line for Procurement in 2015 and how all of it affects professionals in the Middle East & South East Asia?

Let’s check it out.

Major Areas of Procurement Focus:

A big chunk of 52% of responses count ‘reducing the cost of procurement’ as the major area of procurement focus. Expanding Procurement’s scope and reducing supply risk follow closely. Considering the volatile Asian markets, Reducing both cost of procurement & supply risk will be on prime targets. Apart from these top areas, other areas which need to be focused are: Better visibility into indirect spend, enabling technology & innovation to speed up processes & bringing innovative approaches into the process.

What’s on priority?

To achieve better visibility, focus and discover savings opportunities; Procurement Analysis & Reporting tops the chart. This is reflected by over 40% of respondents marking it as a top priority. Following the suit is Strategic Sourcing & Continuous improvement programs. While Asian Markets are still in the developing phase, category management also plays a crucial role. Upgrading & equipping the professionals with robust technology platforms will provide better insights, reporting & intelligence to achieve dedicated targets in the region. By doing so, procurement professionals in the region will be advancing into the Matured Procurement market similar to their European & American counterparts.

Other key capabilities on priority are – enhancing procurement talent, managing procurement, growing shared services & supplier relationship management.

In our next post we shall look at what kind of budgets is the market looking at and what the bottom & top line is for Procurement in 2015.

The Procurement Agenda 2015 report emerges from a recent joint survey conducted by Zycus and The Hackett Group. This survey, responded by over 200 procurement leaders and practitioners, reflects their growing determination to continue to drive sustained procurement savings and efficiency gains in the coming year.

Related Read:

1. Blog – Enabling Procurement Innovation: Zycus’ Footprint in Southeast Asia
2. Enabling Procurement Innovation: Zycus’ Footprint in Southeast Asia
3. What’s your Procurement Agenda? Asia Edition PART 3
4. Zycus Procure to Pay Software
5. Impact of ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) on Region’s Procurement
6. White Paper – Moving Procurement to the cloud for resilient and efficient operations