Procurement in a Virtual Business World

• Identify and adopt a framework for electronic procurement that uses virtual supply chains that incorporate existing state-of-the-art public and private sector electronic procurement and supply chain systems;
• Financial and acquisition changes designed to minimize capital expenditures while simultaneously maximizing operational expenditures
• Build and deploy electronic procurement system that uses virtual supply chains that incorporate multi-media, distributed work-flow management, document handling, and electronic contracting procedures;
• Educate and train users on new processes and systems associated with virtual supply chains and electronic procurement systems; and
• Build, extend and expand supply chain collaboration and electronic data exchange.

• Prioritizing as-a-service information technology consumption and multi-source procurement
• Transitioning from data center ownership and physical management toward the virtual management of IT services delivered from third-partydata centers;
• Dismantling of monolithic software application designs into modern solutions that aggregate internal and externally delivered microservices; and
• Retraining and transitioning staff away from Agile and Waterfall management models toward fully automated DevOps.

Taken together these activities start to describe the many details associated with acquisition and procurement in a virtual business world. Traditional and legacy management systems that comprised of disjointed point solutions cannot provide a holistic picture of the modern virtual supply chain and hybrid IT ecosystem. CIOs looking to blend legacy data centers with multi-vendor cloud solutions and CPOs striving to create higher value for the business by harnessing new and disruptive digital technologies must join together. This new age relationship must focus on delivering to the enterprise:

• A unified source-to-pay platform that can provide seamless information, process, and workflows; easy integration; improved data visibility and integrity; and increased compliance, utilization, and collaboration;
• The ability to leverage technologies like artificial intelligence, the blockchain, and robotic process automation (RPA) that can remove humans from repetitive or mundane tasks such as managing contracts, tracking expenditures, and assessing supplier performance; and
• An open, cloud-based procurement platform that enables rapid innovation while actively supporting the shift from cost control and spend management to value creation and enterprise growth.

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