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The procurement/payables team begins its work by convening for a half-day session to document the current procedures involved in requisitioning, purchasing, receiving, and processing invoices for the major categories of purchases at the institution. This analysis includes not only the technology tools but any other tools that are used in moving a purchase through the system. The analysis highlights major areas where subunits of the institution use separate subsystems (e.g., shadow procurement systems developed to maintain encumbrance information).
This documented process then is evaluated for areas of maximum effciency/inefficiency and maximum cost, and each of these areas for opportunity is prioritized:
While these areas of opportunity are being analyzed, the technology evaluation team is exploring likely tools to assist in making significant process changes--e.g., electronic funds transfer with vendors for payment of invoices; electronic authorization of requisitions, purchases, or payments; and document storage and retrieval systems. The procurement/payables team then puts together a report that reflects the highest priority process changes and describes the technology tools necessary to support those changes. A preliminary analysis of the cost/benefit of these process changes also is prepared at this time. The technology evaluation team includes its analysis of which tools are most available, and which are most likely to be problematic in the current marketplace, so the project management team can see the correlation between highest-impact changes and likelihood of available tools. This analysis is then combined with those being prepared by the other business process teams, into a single requirements document that will form the basis of the request for information and, eventually, the request for proposals that will be issued to potential solution providers. |