Whilst procurement leaders across MENA have worked hard over the past decades to improve their strategies on procurement, supplier relationship, risk management and quality control, there has not been such an opportunity to leverage a competitive advantage as there is today.
Procurement has undergone tremendous changes over the past couple of years and is seen just at the start of their digital transformation journeys. A Hackett report suggests only 32% organisations having implemented a digital strategy in contrast to 85% of respondents believing how important digital transformation would be for procurement. Today, with the right investments in tools, processes and resources, businesses can become a global powerhouse by mastering their procurement strategies and have a competitive edge over others in the process of doing so.
But processing and technology only represent two of Procurement’ three prongs the other being people. In fact, we are already hearing voices suggesting that humans need to be re-integrated into processes (and that, despite automation only just having taken off). Cracking the talent and understanding which technology to implement remains at the top of a Procurement Leader's lists. More specifically, the challenge lies in identifying what kind of tools to implement, how to upskill the talent to work with these tools and how to drive better supplier relationships and collaboration
After the overwhelming success of our 1st edition, we are very excited to bring the “Future Procurement Leaders” forum back to Dubai from 25-27 February 2020 to discuss the way forward for procurement leaders in the region and how businesses can and should revisit their strategies, tools, processes and the entire procurement ecosystem to be a procurement powerhouse of the future.