Firms lose out due to lack of procurement awareness

A lack of understanding among finance directors of the benefits of IT procurement is starting to hit company profits, according to VAR Probrand.

With IT representing the largest indirect procurement spend of any organisation, financial directors, buyers and IT departments could be saving time and money on the buying process as well as getting deals as part of a best practice approach to procurement, the Birmingham-based reseller claimed.

Stephen Bushell, marketing director at Probrand, which launched it own online procurement tool – The IT Index - earlier this year, said: “Spend visibility has never been higher up the agenda. With IT’s important role and related budget share catching the financial eye, the next evolution for practitioners is to understand how to improve methods of securing better IT for cheaper prices.

“With IT bought more efficiently and at cheaper prices, organisations can actually stretch the reach of their existing budgets to accommodate more advanced and capable IT. Aside from time and fiscal savings, the end result of better IT is that FDs can directly drive the business forward at the same time as maximising budgets. This compliments findings that FDs spend around 30 per cent of their time working with IT heads on strategy.”

Peter Robbins, managing director of Probrand, and also e-procurement authority to the private and public sectors, said: “Practitioners can help a client police their IT spend and evaluate how they can get best value from their IT budget. More often than not, practitioners simply don’t appreciate the potential impact of user friendly e-procurement tool sets. They can undoubtedly be a recession busting tool.”