The competitive global business environment has ensured that the business houses and corporate sectors are in tune with technological enhancements while keeping up with the organizational goals and objectives. Technological advancement has led to the birth of e-commerce and B2B and B2C markets. The volatile market with purchasing process playing a major role in the success of the business enterprise has thus made it mandatory for the procurement process to be technologically oriented.

1. Procurement: The Electronic Way for a Competitive Edge
The competitive global business environment has ensured that the business houses and corporate
sectors are in tune with technological enhancements while keeping up with the organizational goals and
objectives. Technological advancement has led to the birth of e-commerce and B2B and B2C markets.
The volatile market with purchasing process playing a major role in the success of the business
enterprise has thus made it mandatory for the procurement process to be technologically oriented.
Procurement being the process of getting the right goods and services at the right place at the right time
is of outmost importance under conditions of scarcity and price hike. The traditional procurement process
would result in higher administrative cost under such circumstances. Hence enterprises need to work out
strategies to mitigate additional costs. Technology enabled e-procurement comes to the help of the
enterprises by automating the procurement workflow from order fulfillment to delivery and invoicing.
Irrespective of the size of the organization or its purchasing capacities, the first step in every procurement
process is identification and recognition of the requirements and involves generating either an automated
or manual purchase requisitions, followed by RFQ’s or purchase orders, payment to the supplier leading
to delivery of goods or services. However, with large number of purchase order software available,
procurement has become an easy process.
With the internet opening up wide scope for researching on efficient order management system and
procurement services available, the automated procurement process offered by the leading service
providers tends to integrate the suppliers, buyers and the partners into a value network. Moreover, the
advent of the cloud computing and its use in the e-procurement process has automated the process
further. It now includes management of contracts and agreements, verification of the price list,
comparison of products. The integrated order management system provides enhanced visibility and
control over the supply chain activities.
Being a cloud process based order management system, it supports web based order placement and
also integrates order feeds from the customer‘s ERP , validates inventory and stock levels, routing
details. It also provides the necessary process and transaction information required for stock planning.
With the help of such real time information enterprises are benefitted with improved order-to-delivery
process..
Further, with detailed order confirmation reports and end-to-end visibility through order transactions has
given this software an edge over the traditional purchase order software. This has also given organization
a greater control over procurement activities and has made post award management highly configurable.
Moreover, the electronic procurement with automated order management system has paved way for a

2. significant reduction in overhead costs with maximized asset utilization. Such robust order management
system helps to streamline business intelligence reporting and ensures faster ROI.
Also read on - expense management software, master data management