Are you a "must-have" or a "nice-to-have"

Recently at EGS we have been trying to look into the future. No not a sudden conversion to astrology - we have been reviewing our product road map as we try to decide what the next generation of our e-procurement platform will look like. As ever we are driven by our customers on this. We are lucky to have a very active user group which has no shortage of ideas. Our job is to sort the “nice-to-have” ideas from the “must-have” ideas. The definition of those categories got us thinking.

Last week a few of us attended the UK’s networking event of the year – Entrepreneur Country. 300 invited businessmen from all walks of life descended on the Institute of Directors to share ideas, view demos and hear presentations. You won’t be surprised to hear that the current market conditions were a recurring story of the day.

And it was here that the theme of “nice-to-have” and “must-have” appeared again. It struck me that a year ago at similar events all the buzz was around companies like Blyk (cheap mobile service with ads), Flurry (mobile email) and Buddi (GPS pet tracking). None of these companies make you money or even save you money – they just make life a little easier. Great fun when times are good, but when times are difficult you can easily do without them. Surely the definition of “nice-to-have”.

At Entrepreneur Country there was a lot of interest in EGS and the savings our services deliver. One of the key speakers described EGS thus: “EGS….if ever there was a company to work with in a downturn”. As I reflected on that I thought to myself, what would happen if you turned off EGS’s service to our customers? The simple answer is at worst their entire supply chain would fail and at best it would cost them a lot of money in a number of ways. Surely that is the definition of “must-have”

So as we build our Development Roadmap for 2009 our challenge is clear. Keep building “must have” tools into our “must have” service.

And finally....... The Entrepreneur Country dinner saw over 100 people sumptuously fed and watered at The Mint Leaf on Haymarket. Now the food there is “must have”!!

How to procure temporary staff electronically

At EGS, all of our customers are implementing some type of corporate service for the provisioning of temporary staff. The use of electronic procurement tools is key no matter which flavour of managed service you select.

We estimate that UK business spends over £25bn per year on temporary labour. We know that the procedures associated with the provision of temporary specialist staff have to date been paper intensive, relying heavily on signatures and paper audit trails. The reconciliation of invoices remains a time-consuming, imprecise manual task leading to delays in payment with high risks of errors and fraud.

The more innovative of EGS’s customers are now achieving major savings by replacing the paper-based practices with an integrated, closed-loop process comprising of the three central electronic P2P procedures:

1. Order Placement, which provides the base document for financial authority against which timecards can be approved and invoices presented. The requirements for specialist workers are complex, but not impossible to capture in a structured purchase order format. Contrary to often cited concerns, when correctly implemented e-ordering speeds up the procurement process and can be used for even the most time critical of requirements, such as, sourcing emergency social care.
2. Receipting, or in this case, the authorisation of timecards. The compiling, routing and authorisation of timecards is particularly well served with internet accessible workflow. Why would you do it any other way?
3. Invoicing - no need for consolidated invoices (they never did reduce work, anyway). Invoices are kept simple and delivered electronically. If the purchase order is in place and the timecard authorised, the invoice can be automatically matched and sent on its way for timely payment. As the PO is approved and timecard is fully auditable, Buyers can safely “self-bill” if they choose.
   
   And, of course, management information is then available. We all need the flexibility of temporary resource to supplement our permanent staff through the peaks and troughs in workload and unanticipated absences. However, without the visibility and control that comes with e-procurement your temporary staff may well be costing you much more than you think.
   
   And you thought e-procurement was just for buying stationery!!