According to an old merchant´s saying cost-efficient procurement is the best way for companies to save money. As was reported by the Federal association for material management, procurement and logistics e.V. (BME) at the “e_procure & supply” expert fair in Nuremberg, companies using tools for electronic procurement on average save between 15 and 30 percent on process costs and between 5 and 10 percent on purchase prices. These are the results of the “BME-Stimmungsbarometer Elektronische Beschaffung 2006« survey carried out this year among 47 major enterprises (with more than 2.000 employees) and 46 small and medium-sized entities (SME).
“The survey discovered a second wave of E-procurement (⇒ Wikipedia). The major part of companies for quite a long time have not paid attention to electronic procurement, but for approx. one year now many of them have been introducing or are currently planning to introduce it”, says the managing director of the BME, Dr. Holger Hildebrandt. Only 14 percent of companies still believe to be able to get along without electronic catalogues (Desktop Purchasing) and one quarter thinks that they could do without E-sourcing solutions (electronic auctions/tenders). As regards small and medium-sized companies the BME has discovered marked deficits. Whereas 88 percent of major enterprises for several years have been making use of electronic catalogues, this figure with SME stands at 51 percent only. 22 percent of SME are currently carrying out at least introductory projects. E-sourcing tools have been increasingly implemented over the last year, whereas many companies (22 percent as regards tenders, 17 percent as regards purchase auctions) are seriously considering their implementation. In this respect again major enterprises are well ahead of SME. Further details of the survey are available here. 