Can Procurement Run on Microsoft Office?

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📰 In This Week’s Edition…

Hi there,

In this week’s edition:

• A free Accounts Payable Automation ebook (sponsored)

• 5 procurement jobs that caught my eye this week

• Can you run Procurement on Google or Microsoft Apps? 😱

Have a great week ahead.

Best,

Joël

P.S. In case you missed it, I’m hosting the ProcureTech Cup right now on LinkedIn — This is a GREAT way to discover new procurement technology. Here’s where you can catch up on the action.

📋 Job Board

Here are 5 job openings that caught my eye this week:

Electrolux Group is looking for a Supply Chain Director
Full Time | Anderson, South Carolina

iHerb is looking for a Vice President, Procurement
Full Time | Irvine, California | Salary: $220-386K

Manulife is looking for a Manager, Procurement Strategy
Full Time | Hybrid | Toronto, Canada

OpenAI is looking for a Senior Manager, Strategic Sourcing
Full Time | Hybrid | San Francisco, California

Optomi is looking for a IT Procurement Manager
Full Time | Remote | Charlotte, Carolina

Are you looking for a digitally-minded procurement professional?
Send me your job posting.

🔑 Key Takeaways

No time to read the rest? Here are the key takeaways:

1. Can you use Google or Microsoft Office Apps to support the end-to-end procurement process in your business? Theoretically, yes… However, this is a very bad idea. Why?

2. Google and Microsoft Office Apps are the equivalent of car parts. When you buy a car, are you expecting to assemble it?

3. When should you use Google and Microsoft Office Apps to support procurement processes? When you don’t have a choice… And before you agree is when you need to negotiate for your future software and the timeline… If you stand up an App supported process and then start asking, get in line…

Read the full 🌙 Sunday Night Note for all the juicy details.

🌙 Sunday Night Note

I got an interesting question from a client this week… I thought I would share my answer will all of you.

Theoretically, yes.
However, this is a very bad idea in both cases…

Let's unpack.

Office Productivity Software vs Procurement

First, an important stat… Together, Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 account for 74% of the global “office productivity software” market.¹

These two suites are the globally available “tools for work” regardless of which industry, country or function your work in… That’s an oligopoly if I’ve ever seen one…

It’s therefore quite common for me to get this question, especially from newer procurement teams and/or businesses, because one of these suites is usually immediately accessible with no “corporate hoops” to jump through.

🎼 Wouldn’t it be nice… 🎵

To correctly lay out my answer, let’s use my “procurement primary activity” framework as detailed in my Procurement Function Overview article.

Primarily, procurement typically supports the following processes, in some way, shape or form:

• Spend Analysis & Category Management

• Sourcing

• Contract Management

• Operational Purchasing (Procure-to-Pay : Part 1)

• Accounts Payable (Procure-to-Pay : Part 2)

• Supplier Relationship and Performance Management (SRM)

So the real question is whether you can support the above processes with Google or Microsoft Office suites…

Google and Microsoft will say YES! Look:

However, going full steam ahead in one of the above columns would be a very bad idea indeed…

Why?

Let’s illustrate with an analogy…

When purchasing a car, your requirements are:

• Trying to get from point A to point B safely and quickly

• Your secondary specs (family size, cargo space, terrain, etc.)

Would you buy a car shipped to your house in dozens of boxes of unassembled parts with no instructions on how to assemble it? Even if it was sold at a really good price? No! When the heck will you be able to get to where you’re going?!

You just want to buy something that will meet your requirements and let you carry on with your business.

Trying to run your procurement processes with Google Apps or Microsoft Office products is essentially the same thing as our disassembled car…

These office applications excel at supporting discrete activities and/or tasks in a process (e.g. writing a document, analysis in spreadsheet format, preparing a presentation, etc.), just as a car part excels at it’s particular task (e.g. the turn signal for letting cars know where you’re going).

If you set off into the sunset trying to support your procurement function using Google Apps or Microsoft Office products, you will spend lots of time, effort and money building, developing and troubleshooting processes and workflows that will also ultimately underperform compared to ‘fit for purpose’ applications designed to support procurement functions.

You’ll be trying to reinvent the wheel…

I’ll also bet you a crisp $100 that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) will actually be higher using the “Office Apps Approach” even though it won’t cost much in license fees vs. “fit for purpose” apps. Why? So. Many. Man. Hours.

That being said, office productivity apps will always be part of your workflows and any fit-for-purpose procurement apps will consider and integrate this into their design (e.g. Supporting the contract draft process via word processor).

When Should You Use Office Apps to Support Procurement?

When you have no other choice… (e.g. no budget, no time to implement) 😅

We all intuitively know this… We’ve all been forced to put a new process together using duct tape within a quick turnaround time… Our Office Apps (inefficiently) save the day...

When this happens, it is of the utmost importance that you figuratively go down kicking and screaming… Don’t be the “nice procurement team player” that just makes the new requirement work even when you know you can…

This is the time when you make a “big stink” and begrudgingly accept with a “Yes IF”.

Yes, I can stand up a new supplier onboarding process in 3 weeks using SharePoint, Excel and Microsoft Word…

IF, you commit to putting Procurement at the top of the list for new applications.

Nothing is as permanent as a temporary solution… Remember that and get your “IFs” in writing up front!

💭 Quote of the Week

📊 How Did I Do This Week?

Best comment from last week:

Thanks Joanne!
I had no idea the ProcureTech Cup would generate so much interest and engagement (and controversy…😅). It’s a great way to discover new solutions to optimally support your procurement function.
Follow me on LinkedIn to get in on the fun.
Vote and leave a comment to get featured next week.

That’s it for today.

When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help:

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Till next time,

Joël