Till now we discussed the state of organizations in the Greenfield scenario and the path that CPO can take to improve procurement functioning.

We also started with a new scenario – Stalled Initiative: Substandard Suite. Taking it further, let us discuss some more key points to be considered.

• Key stakeholder considerations – whether there’s a new procurement leadership or not, the procurement department invested significant capital to get executives and the large end-user base behind a solution suite roll-out, with poor results. The stakeholders would be cynical about this time being any different.
• Critical decisions points – there can be number of reasons why the launch of source-to-settle solution suite failed the first time. It’ll be critical for the CPO to have a critical understanding of what went wrong and why and develop a plan that addresses each of the issues head-on. The CPO and the department will now have to prove to the stakeholders that there are significant lessons learned from the first time and things will be different now. The CPO must avoid casting blame in specific direction when analyzing the root cause for failure.
• Typical CPO path – once the decision has been made to move in a new direction and replace the current systems, many CPOs will choose to replace the entire current system in one fell swoop. The new and improved solution suite will have to match and improve upon all of what the current system supports. CPOs may choose a single ‘cut-over’ from the old system to the new but maintain both during a period of transition.

In the next blog we will explore the third path to procurement transformation.