To centralize or not to centralize your procurement operations? That is the question. For large and rapidly growing organizations, it takes an abundance of resources and advanced tools to operate at a peak level. Ensuring efficiency comes down to one key factor: your ability to obtain what you need while minimizing spend.
If efficiency is not the cornerstone of your procurement efforts, your organization’s bottom line will be impacted. No wonder, then, that many businesses are carefully considering the centralization of inventory management. After all, the rewards of centralization are ample: assuming greater control over the various buying processes, increased visibility and transparency and a streamlined purchasing process. But centralizing procurement is not a magic wand and it may not be right for every operational strategy.
Before you embrace a centralization structure, you need to gain a clear understanding of your long-term goals, your key hurdles, and the work that lies ahead. The first question any organization needs to ask before proceeding is, “How much better would our organization be if we had the capability of maintaining better control over procurement operations and inventory management?”