Basware’s New Year wishes for the procurement solutions and services marketplace 2022

Our series of New Year wishes (rather than ‘predictions’) for the procurement, supply and services market for the year ahead (read more about it here) runs from mid-December to early January, then our analyst Bertrand Maltaverne will wrap up with his own take on the key themes that emerge. Wishes are published in no other order than when they are received in our digital postbox.

If you are looking for procurement technology to help with your wishes for 2022, try out Spend Matters TechMatch℠ to benchmark and shortlist providers 

So continuing this year’s series of wishes from expert tech and service providers, let’s hear today from Perttu Nihti, CPO at AP automation, e-Procurement and Purchase-to-Pay solutions provider, Basware, one of Spend Matters 50 To Know.

My three wishes 2022:

1. I hope businesses continue to focus on the long-term resilience of their supply chains

Many businesses have taken immediate short-term actions to battle the pandemic. However, these have oftentimes been measures that help the companies weather a shorter-term disturbance in the supply chain, such as inventory shortages.

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has unfortunately showed us that the situation may persist longer than we thought. And, of course, there will always be other factors (macro-economic, political, environmental, etc.) that could cause disruptions in the future for a long period of time. That’s why it’s important to continue to look at supply chain resilience for the long haul. I hope companies not only start resilience planning now, but also start implementing those plans. Scenario planning, where a company identifies commonalities across potential situations for long-term solutions (e.g., nearshoring, sourcing secondary suppliers, cutting down on bill of materials, etc.), will be the key to success for resilience-building for the future.

2. I want to see a move in source-to-pay (S2P) processes from digitalization to touchless

The benefits of digitalization, such as cutting costs and improving business continuity, became clear during the pandemic and many companies have already started to either digitalize more business processes, or do so to a further extent. With digitalization well under way it is time to truly focus on automation to yield touchless processing. This is my wish for S2P because, with fewer and fewer human touches, cost savings and business continuity only improve more, instantly creating a competitive edge. To achieve success, use a combination of business process optimization, system configuration and the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

3. I wish that all business leaders would continue to focus on ESG in their respective companies’ direct operations, as well as supply chains

While Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance, or ESG, has been a hot topic for a while, I believe its importance will only continue to increase and companies will be scrutinized even more closely going forward. Plus, it’s our collective responsibility to protect the world for the future.

As such, I hope businesses first take steps to optimize their carbon footprints via direct operations. Digitalization helps here as well as it can reduce a company’s carbon footprint and enforce processes that guide towards sustainable business practices. But my full wish is that enterprises don’t stop there and instead also focus on the supply chain by embedding ESG as a central part of their S2P processes with regards to supplier selection, monitoring and audits, and processes and guidelines. It’s easy to do so when a business automates its data, providing the company with as much visibility as possible so that leaders have a holistic, clear view over their entire supplier base versus the top strategic suppliers only.

Thanks to Basware, and look out for more solution and services provider wishes/predictions over the next few weeks, with an overall take on the series from our analysts at the end. See more vendor predictions and wishes here with our analyst commentary from last year.

And if you are looking for procurement services providers to help you with your 2022 decisions, look no further than our Procurement Services Market Landscape Directory.