More Than Half of Manufacturers and Retailers Are Investing in Digital Procurement

The supply chain nightmares of 2021 and 2022 are fading, in large part due to payments modernization undertaken since those dark days to make sure we don’t see a repeat.

This is analyzed in the study “Digital Payments: Modernizing Procurement Processes,” a PYMNTS and Corcentric collaboration, based on surveys of CFOs across the healthcare, finance, insurance, retail and manufacturing, examining changes made in payments for procurement across these verticals, and how digital modernization is improving operations.

Businesses have been increasing investments in digital payments technology since COVID first appeared, and the study notes: “Companies that felt the pain of the supply chain breakdown most acutely have been the most aggressive in upgrading their procurement systems. These businesses expect their investments to pay off by ensuring that these systems improve the efficiency of their processes for purchasing goods and services during normal business conditions and enabling quicker responses to future disruptions.”

Focusing on two areas that have modernized in similar ways, the study shows 31% of retailers are investing in procurement systems and 53% plan to, whereas 42% of manufacturers are already investing in upgrades to their procurement technology, with another 44% formulating these investments.

The study finds that 66% of retailers and 59% of manufacturers believe modernizing their business processes is the most important reason to invest in digital procurement technology.

As the study states, “Many are focused on improving the functions for supplier data — such as real-time inventory information and supply chain analytics — which may be the result of lessons businesses learned during the pandemic’s early months, when supply chains stopped operating efficiently. These supplier data systems can help businesses improve their planning and forecasting while also giving them the ability to manage and even broaden supply chains when they need to meet a surge in customer demand or find alternative suppliers when shortages occur.”

To that end, the survey revealed that 55% of manufacturers and 54% of retailers investing in improvements to their procurement systems are also investing or planning to invest in upgrades to logistics and supply chain functions. Additionally, 41% of retailers and 39% of manufacturers that are investing to improve their procurement systems are spending to upgrade their systems for supplier data.

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