1. Attention Governments: Cybersecurity is Essential in a Digital World

As the digital world continues to expand, cybersecurity has taken center stage as an ever-growing concern.
Cybercriminals worldwide are leveraging advanced technologies to create increasingly sophisticated attacks, and the consequences of inaction are too significant to ignore.
Governments, businesses, and individuals must work together to build a framework that is resilient, adaptive, and secure.

https://www.tcs.com/insights/blogs/cybersecurity-new-frontier-digital-age 

There’s no debate that cost effective sourcing contributes to a strong bottom line, yet businesses are currently facing many challenges to effective procurement and operations. Still, in many cases, resistance to change and corporate inertia result in organizations continuing to use highly distributed and “non-synergistic” systems. Even more challenging is the case of mergers/acquisitions, where corporations maintain existing systems to provide an illusion of a “business-as-usual” feel to internal stakeholders.

CPOs and CFOs across organizations, irrespective of size, type of business or growth strategies, need to align procurement with the vision of their organization. The most critical issues are disparate focus and incongruous strategies. The decision process for effective sourcing can not only be complex, but daunting. Critical to success is the decision related to the degree of centralization required within the procurement organization.

Centralized procurement lends a strategic advantage to organizations through economies of scale and collective buying power. However, in some cases a federal, coordinated or center-led structure works better. These models allow individual business units to act autonomously and minimize corporate overhead. However, due to lack of coordination each unit may end up with different prices and contractual conditions for the same supplies. How organizations can define their procurement models is a
critical process.

The right approach is to acquire a thorough understanding of the organizational dynamics affecting effective procurement. In our experience, an approach to innovation, as shown in Figure 1, requires an in-depth analysis of target elements, and a study of industry best practices and benchmarking. The results of the analysis are used to create a synergetic approach that aligns procurement goals with the organization’s goals.

The CPO balanced scorecard - Supply Chain Management Review

3. Reimagining the procurement operating model for tomorrow

All organizations, irrespective of the nature of their business, are dependent on external
vendors for most of the materials and components comprising their products and services.
External vendors play so much a part of the current operating model that organizations
cannot be sustained without their support. We are emerging from the unprecedented challenges
thrown at us by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has significantly changed the basic ways
in which operations are planned and executed, necessitating procurement leaders to transform
their operating model to align with a revised organizational business operating model

Reimagining the procurement operating model for tomorrow - Supply Chain Management Review

4. Digital Shared Services - Looking Beyond Conventional Model

The white paper deals with the new challenges in conventional shared services model. It speaks about what is art of possible in the world of digital supply chain and how it makes day of operations life easy for CPOs

https://itsupplychain.com/sourcing-procurement-shared-services-looking-beyond-the-conventional-model/

At times, the cost of invoice processing and associated cost exceeded the value of the invoice itself. Many businesses do not optimize tail-end spend management. However, this can be as or more effective in improving the bottom line and should be one of the modern CFO’s priorities.
Large number of low value invoices is a reality in most businesses, which increases invoice management overheads. Many times, the cost of invoice processing, combined with purchase and associated cost, far exceeded the value of the invoice itself. Further, 60-70% of procurement employees are dedicated to processing these low value invoices. Despite the overheads, many businesses, for various reasons, are not serious about optimizing tail-end spend management. Tail-end spend management requires an effective process. While process deployment is critical, it's equally important to ensure process rigor.

This paper highlights how tail-end spend management can be more effective in improving the bottom line and should be one of the modern CFO’s priorities.

http://www.tcs.com/business-process-services/related-insights/Pages/hidden-treasure-tail-end-spend.aspx

6. Creating Synergies to Strengthen the Bottom-Line After M&A

Organizations face challenges in leveraging sourcing to enhance their bottom line. The situation is further complicated when organizations merge with or acquire other entities. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) result in increasingly disparate procurement processes, raising the need for organizations to choose between decentralized, centralized, or center-led procurement set-ups. Explore how harmonized procurement processes, in a post M&A environment, can yield savings and enhance business value

http://www.wipro.com/documents/resource-center/integrated-cost-optimization-wcs-final.pdf 

▪ Generative Design Foundations 

▪ Sales Enablement 

▪ Special Initiative Award

▪ Certified Strategy Professional

▪ Blockchain – A Revolution Bigger Than The Internet by BSE Institute Limited 

▪ Digital: Internet of Things (IoT) _ Foundation by TCS 

▪ Digital Transformation Across Extended Supply Chain by SAP 

▪ Coupa Platform & Implementation by Coupa