Although still in its infancy, the e-procurement services market will grow exponentially in the next 12 to 24 months as the market moves from early adopters to early majority stage. To align with this opportunity, IDC believes e-procurement service vendors must work creatively and proactively to win e-procurement engagements.
"The e-procurement services opportunity didn`t exist 18 months ago," said Nelly Zaharinov, senior analyst with IDC`s Supply Chain Services research program. "However, with a significant number of companies expected to move their indirect and even direct procurement online, the need for a new breed of service provider is on the rise. This new breed is defined as the e-procurement services firm that offers services from upfront needs assessment to post implementation change management services to financial processing and catalogue management services to meet client expectations for a complete e-procurement solution."
A new end-user survey published by IDC reveals that in this stage of the market, e-procurement service vendors that are targeting small and mid-tier companies should remain focused on indirect procurement goods such as MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) and IT supplies. However, vendors targeting large companies should expand their service portfolio to include direct goods e-procurement, which will require strategic sourcing and category management expertise.
The IDC study surveyed 68 US-based purchasing professionals who said they had already used or were committed to using e-procurement in the next 12 months. IDC examined the services role in accelerating and maximizing an e-procurement investment, the type of direct and indirect goods to be e-procured within the next 12 months, the near-term service opportunities by customer size, and decision factors influencing customers` choice of e-procurement service vendor. Results of this survey can be found in Winning E-procurement Engagements: Early Customers Give Hints to Success (IDC #B23669).
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International Data Corporation (IDC)
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BMI-TechKnowledge Group (BMI-T)
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