Every procurement professional recognizes that web technology initially developed for consumers plays an important role in his or her workspace. He issues RFI’s on an online marketplace and orders his new laptop from the internal service catalogue. Very similar to the platforms used in his private life to sell the second hand bicycles of his children or buy a new mobile data subscription.
Back in 2012, Ruud Olthoff, CPO of Rabobank, spoke about the importance and opportunity for the use of Social Media in procurement at an event in Italy. Check out his presentation here. He illustrates the opportunities for procurement professionals to use social media and gives a lot of practical information. Reading his presentation again I also realized how fast the world has developed in this area in the last two years.
Until recently procurement professionals had to access multiple social media platforms and do “manual” research. Social media was not yet integrated into procurement applications. CRM was the first domain to draw on information and functionality from social networks and present them to the user based on his/her role. One of the first to adopt was Salesforce.com; a good example of turning social media into hard business benefits and cash.
Procurement is catching up; today many of the large ISV’s (SAP, Oracle, Emptoris etc.) have – or are - integrating social media technology in their standard offerings. The strategic importance of this technology is illustrated by SAP’s acquisition of Ariba and recently Fieldglass; both key players in this arena. New players are also lining up to occupy this space. Niche players like Mazree offer simple and effective Cloud based services to collaborate with Suppliers. The market for these services is evolving quickly and expected to grow significantly the next few years.
This is a good example of yet another consumer technology that is finding its way into the procurement workspace. I’ll be following the developments in this area and am interested in hearing your views and experiences.
Author: Ray van Amerom. Ray is Managing Partner at Berkx and regularly posts on the blog Procurement Talk.
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