Purchase request

Workflow example

Purchasing workflows: Secure your validation channels

Recently, a company specializing in transport contacted our teams to digitize its purchasing flows and automate its validation channels.

The issue:
Managing purchase requests based on the remaining budgets and amount requested.

Today, employees make requests by email following an Excel template. The first problem: finding the right Excel file and being sure that it’s the latest version. To obtain this valuable information, you should either ask a manager or a colleague or contact the procurement department directly.
Once the correct template is up to date and available, the request must then be forwarded to the branch manager who, depending on the amount, will have to escalate the request to the purchasing managers or even the regional director. This validation escalation can have several consequences:

  • Slowing the processing time of requests
  • “Rule of thumb’ management of pending, past, canceled requests etc.
  • Impacting employees’ quality of work or working conditions if they don’t have their equipment in time

There is no tracking of requests and processes are handled manually via telephone reminders, email, and Excel. There is no common indicator that allows procurement teams to make cold decisions or simply track the status of requests in real time.

The company therefore initially audited the employees and identified the priority needs:

  • Define multi-level communication and validation workflows
  • Create dashboards with custom metrics
  • Allow business areas to model their processes and identify business process leaders
  • Create dashboards with custom metrics
  • Integrate the existing information system
  • Make it easy to manage and update processes
  • Easily automate reminders and reduce the sending of emails, documents, validation per process (via Lotus Notes corporate mailbox)
  • Make the exchanges between company business teams effective through comments contained in the validation workflows
  • Notify users in real time of the arrival of new tasks to be performed and/or the progress of processes in which they are participants
  • Be able to schedule visible alerts in the user dashboards when validation deadlines are exceeded or actions are uncompleted
  • Comply with the GDPR
  • Integrate updates and newer features as innovation and customer demands change

Why choose BPM software?

Many organizations are trying to use their internal resources to develop their information system and this is a good approach. But if the company’s software or IT staff cannot cover the demand, business process management (BPM) software can fully integrate the specifications. This is because it is superimposed on the existing system, integrating employees and useful data. From a simple plan and without extensive technical knowledge, it is possible to digitize an entire service or simply automate manual procedures.

Automated validation channels

A clearer and more fluid organization

Based on the needs identified by the teams, the purchasing manager responsible for the project had discussions with the Iterop consultants in order to define a version 0 of the purchase request process. This version was subsequently made available to a group of users to validate and correct the process.
After a few days of refining, the new purchasing workflow was put online. Employees can now make a request via an online form without having to worry about which version or cell to fill out; everything is already documented and updated as purchases are made.

Reminders happen automatically, emails are almost gone, and validation requests are transmitted to the right person. Managers now have a comprehensive view of purchase requests: average amount, number of monthly requests, purchase typology etc. Reporting is done automatically in the operating interface on customized dashboards.

automated workflow
Process leader: purchasing manager
Process participants: purchasing teams, branch manager
Process initiators: all company participants

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