We are being measured by cost savings, cost optimization, on time delivery, quality of products and services receipt, internal customer satisfaction and time to market from getting quotes, generate purchase order from purchase requisition raised. Today, procurement is known as a cost centre, we engage in dialogue rich discussion to enable all of the above and more.

“Web based technologies enable and match buyers order to sellers offer, delivery and service receipt, and payments are all done in cloud”

In the future, perhaps, artificial intelligence willcategorize and classify requestor free text demand in emailwith ease into categories, maybe voice recognition system where requestor purchases are converted automatically into a RFQ, and save many man hours of work in getting an order into the Procure to Pay system. Web based technologies enable and match buyers order to sellers offer, delivery and service receipt, and payments are all done in cloud. All these are done real-time 24/7 by software defined networking. Technology enables both buyers and sellers to use a standard rating system to rate each other performance. It is no longer the buyers having the right to rate the sellers. It is no longer true that customer is always right. This resulted in more collaboration where buyers and sellers will pool their talents together on products, services, manpower, expertise and new ideas offer. This raise innovation and productivity to a new level for imagination. This is very possible. According to A.T. Kearney (2015), retail e-commerce has grown nearly to USD 840 billions in 2015 surpassing the sales of USD 695 billions in year 2013 and it was estimated to increase to USD 1506 billions in 2018, as online retailers continued expanding to new geographies and physical retailers entered new markets through e-commerce².

What is my Dream of the Future Procurement?

“The future procurement professional sits on a myriad of data connecting the organization to external. We are the data scientists that draw business intelligence out from the mass amount of data. We architect the business processesfor software defined networking. We train our internal stakeholders to be smart buyers. Buying smartly rest with the organization and not with a function. We become a professional problem solver across departmentand lead business improvement as a champion. We influence the buyer decision, and the seller behaviour. We are influencers. No matter how we change. We have to quantify our efforts with Balanced Scorecard,and financial accounting methodology, to translate the strategy into operational terms, make the strategy everyone’s everyday behaviour, make the strategy a continual process and mobilize change through strong, effective leadership,” quoted by Kaplan and Norton. Perhaps then, Procurement will become a profit centre and drive innovative initiatives from portion of the quantified saving that we optimize.

Quoted from our founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, "There is a glorious rainbow that beckons those with a spirit of adventure...To the young and not too old, I say, look at the horizon, find that rainbow, go ride it."