Currently, purchasing management is a key element for the competitiveness of companies due to the importance it has on business results through the profit margin, delivery times, product/service quality, satisfaction of the client, etc.
In recent years and with the appearance of New Technologies and more specifically the Internet, purchasing management has seen an important opportunity to improve. So much so, that an eMarketer study indicates that 90% of companies plan to buy products and services through the Internet before the year 2003.
To know the dimension of this revolution, it must be reflected that electronic commerce between companies has grown significantly: in the year 2000 in the United States, products and services were purchased online for a value of 1.2 trillion dollars (including transactions by EDI).
- Decrease in the acquisition prices of purchases between 5 and 15%).
- Decrease in the costs of the processes by around 50% due to the improvement in their efficiency.
- Reduction of purchase costs due to the elimination of intermediaries.
- Expansion of the number of potential suppliers and reduction of location time.
- Decrease in provisioning time between 50 and 70%
- Improvements in stock management and reduction of inventory levels.
- Greater use of human resources in the purchasing area.
- Accurate information on the status of the purchase process.