
In introducing the concept of the “virtual supplier room” in its recent forward looking paper, Procurement’s Next Frontier – The Future Will Give Rise to an Organization of One, Accenture draws a line in the sand that category management will still be an important part of procurement in the future.
The notion of having one place to truly manage a category rather than just execute the various functions associated with sourcing, contracting and procurement goes so far beyond how category management works in practice today, where the vast majority of activity happens in multiple business applications, loosely or non-coupled applications in Excel or in reading PDFs centered on supply market intelligence. The idea of a true category workbench as Accenture envisions will require integrated technology that is useful enough for those who leverage it to want to work in a common space.