Procurement Predictions for 2021 - Claritum's Top Ten

B2B Marketplaces, where you can create your own networked members area within a public platform, will become more prevalent. To combat issues of trading during significant supply chain disruptions.

Medium sized organisations will use procurement automation and buyer portals in the cloud, to address concerns of spend management, remote working and data security.

The focus on improving the user experience of procurement automation platforms will continue, as large scale systems continue to deliver poorly on what users expect.

Sustainability and diversity of supply initiatives will move from being a group of token changes to being a fundamental shift in organisational approach driven by Procurement.

Use of AI Machine Learning, specifically in data analytics, will move mainstream for Procurement.

Pressure on cost management will continue, as supply chains recover from the impacts associated with the current pandemic and organisations seek to recover financially from the crisis.

There will continue to be damaging high profile failings of supply chains, associated with sustainability, as organisations try to get a better grip on their supply chain tiers.

Seasoned Procurement professionals will look to new and emerging technology vendors to provide category optimised platforms that replace costly generic legacy systems.

Larger companies, impacted by furloughing and redundancies, will look to deploy specific sourcing features & functionalities to drive process and workflow efficiencies.

We’re still waiting to see what the next technical hype cycle will be. Procurement, though, will focus on using technology to get the basics right and their human resources to add the innovation that ensures they stay competitive.