The interface from the department to procurement forms the basis for the entire procurement process. Effective collaboration quickly decides on project success, cost savings, and process compliance.
In this post, we report from over 50 conversations about the most common challenges in German SMEs and experience reports on solution concepts that could be developed with the help of Lhotse.
Numerous systems for digital procurement are currently being offered on the market. However, the selection in individual company cases - especially for German SMEs - is extremely difficult. This is mainly because various parameters (company size, objectives, budget, procurement cases, legacy issues, etc.) severely limit the selection.
While large corporations usually rely on the big names in the eProcurement scene such SAP Ariba, these offer no alternative for the traditional SME due to the enormous costs and resulting complexity. Here, it simply doesn't pay off to take on the effort of a multi-year implementation process, including 7-figure costs.
For SMEs, other objectives apply. The focus is on pragmatism and resource conservation. As pragmatic procurement processes as possible should be established, which can be set up and accompanied by the company's own employees without taking up additional resources (especially IT).
From this requirement profile, three dominant process alternatives have emerged for German SMEs for decades:
As can probably be directly guessed: From these pragmatic solution approaches, strong impairments arise across a wide range of companies. These challenges often extend to invoice receipt through the entire procurement process and make work difficult for the parties involved.
Pragmatism and lack of resources often lead to static solution approaches. The challenges are obvious - but how can German SMEs detach themselves from them?
Lhotse aims to offer an intuitive tool that enables companies to map guidelines in a guided and digital process. A process that covers the needs of the departments and procurement. Easily connected to existing ERP or e-procurement systems, the platform should be able to be flexibly integrated into various system and process landscapes. For this, the company relies on the following solution approaches:
