Debbie Wilson

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Deborah R Wilson
Research Vice President
4 years at Gartner
12 years IT industry

Deborah Wilson, a Gartner research vice president, covers procurement strategies and applications. Her areas of interest include procurement transaction automation, e-marketplaces, e-sourcing, spend analysis, accounts payable automation… Read Full Bio

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If Not Now, When?

by Debbie Wilson  |  February 17, 2009  |  1 Comment

I’m glad to report that last week, the first deliverable of my work on the role of e-procurement in a down economy was published.  “Cut Indirect Costs With E-Procurement” (subscription or purchase required) details how requisition-based tools can deliver the very simple but very powerful functionality of delaying, redirecting or even stopping spend before it occurs.

If e-procurement is so great, you may be thinking, why hasn’t everyone rushed to install it?  The simple answer is that e-procurement has been significantly hindered by cultural issues.  It’s difficult to convince people are used to spending their budgets as they see fit to submit to a stricter governance process.  When money is plentiful, empowering individuals in this manner is often sufficient.   Today, even the most independent, entrepreneurial-minded folks can recognize that tighter spending controls are appropriate, particularly when the alternative may be cutting more jobs.  And so I ask:  If this is not the right time to overcome cultural objections – when will it ever be?     

1 Comment »

Category: Cost Cutting E-Procurement Research Library (Subscription/Purchase Required)     Tags:

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Neil Robertson   June 24, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    There is no doubt that most finance managers and directors recognise the value of automating the procurement process – full commitment accounting, centralised and automated budget control, consolidation of suppliers with improved terms and better prices, significant productivity gains and the removal of the tedious, slow and prone to failure of the manual systems.

    The problem for the mid market has always been the cost of the solutions available and their complexity at implementation and on-going cost of ownership.

    With over 90% of the mid market using purely manual systems, the opportunity is significant. With that in mind, Compleat can deliver a 50 – 100 user P2P system for less than £20k and get it live in 6-8 weeks. For most companies, a 1%-2% saving on their discretionary spend delivers a credible ROI of less than 6 months.

    Now there is an affordable solution as well as an ideal window of opportunity to overcome the cultural objections.