What would your procurement team accomplish with an 80% reduction in workload? SourceDay’s procurement automation capabilities offer the tools and insights to transition from reactive processes to proactive strategies, unlocking new opportunities for risk reduction, efficiency and growth.
The Procurement Paradox: Tactical vs. Strategic Initiatives
Procurement teams play a pivotal role in safeguarding revenue and optimizing operational efficiency. They ensure timely delivery of inbound supplies, reduce excess inventory costs, and protect production timelines. Yet, these high-value strategic goals often take a backseat to the overwhelming volume of manual, low-impact tasks. The consequences are clear:
- High-touch processes: A typical buyer manages hundreds—if not thousands—of purchase orders (POs) monthly, requiring back-and-forth communication for acknowledgments, updates, and shipping terms. Even in the best-case scenario, each PO demands at least one interaction; however, 88% of orders require two or more touchpoints.
- Frequent changes: SourceDay’s dataset, which takes in more than 100 million PO updates annually, reveals that 35% of POs have buyer-initiated changes, while 15% face supplier-initiated changes. Any update to terms also requires an ERP update. This results in an overwhelming barrage of manual updates.
- Reactive firefighting: With 37% of POs delayed, buyers spend significant time chasing suppliers for updates, managing expedited shipments, and addressing disruptions—diverting attention from strategic priorities.
This reactive cycle undermines procurement’s ability to contribute meaningfully to higher-level business objectives through strategic planning and supplier performance management.
How SourceDay Automation Empowers Procurement
SourceDay Intelligence’s AI/ML-driven automation capabilities revolutionize procurement by tackling the root causes of risk and inefficiency, enabling teams to focus on strategic activities.
Workload Reduction
Procurement inefficiencies often go unaddressed due to volume of and limited day-to-day activities. SourceDay Intelligence bridges this gap by analyzing purchasing interactions and leveraging insights from the $65 billion in spend (and growing) managed by the SourceDay platform. The result? Actionable recommendations to automate repetitive and low-impact tasks, enabling procurement teams to eliminate unnecessary tactical time spent in the PO lifecycle:
- Automate new orders, updates, and reminders sent to suppliers.
- Manage supplier-initiated changes using configurable rules, such as automatically accepting new dates for non-critical parts within a specified window.
This shift reduces the average number of touches per PO by up to 50%, allowing buyers to focus on high-impact work and minimizing human error.
How it works
Custom Automation Workflows
Admin roles at Buyer companies can create custom automation workflows to automate high-touch repetitive work. These workflows apply to all purchase orders for their company. Any role will be able to view these automation workflows so they can understand what rules are in place that may affect their POs.
The general flow of an automation workflow includes:
Trigger – when an event happens
- Supplier proposed cost, date, price change risks
- Supplier proposed cancellation risks
Refine – only run the workflow when it meets these conditions
- All data points, including custom columns from the customer, are filterable
- Some examples include
- Only run this workflow when the Proposed date is 5 days or less past the due date
- Only run this workflow when the Proposed price is within 2% of the current price
Action – take this action when the event occurs and it meets the above conditions
- Auto-accept
- Auto-reject
- Send a message
Status – what state the workflow is in
- Live – the workflow is active and will run when the refinement conditions are met
- Staged – the workflow will check each trigger event and log each occurrence when the refinement conditions are met but will not actually take any actions. For testing and ensuring that everything works as expected before going live.
- Draft – the workflow is not yet active and will not take any actions nor log any results
Default Automation Workflows
In addition to enabling the building of custom automation workflows, SourceDay embeds several “Default Automations” that are core to process efficiency. These include:
- Automating the delivery of new POs to SourceDay suppliers
- Automating reminder notifications to suppliers when POs have outstanding actions
- Automating confirmation requests from suppliers when POs are due soon
- Automating the notification of late POs
- Automating the update of POs in the ERP when there are changes to price, quantity, or date
Run Log
To help teams understand when and how purchase orders are impacted by a particular automation workflow, SourceDay provides a “Run log”. This run log will show information about the purchase order, the status of the workflow, time the action was performed, and reason why the action failed, if applicable. There is also a link to the purchase order history where users are able to see the change that caused the workflow to run.
An “Edit history” provides an audit of the changes that were made to the automation workflow, such as the author of a change to a rule, the time it was changed, and what changes were made.
Strategic Supply Risk and Performance Management
Consider a typical buyer managing hundreds of POs monthly. With SourceDay’s automation capabilities, this buyer can spend more time focused on strategic tasks like:
- Identifying and addressing critical risks like underperforming suppliers.
- Updating lead times for high-volume items that consistently deliver early to avoid excess inventory.
To enable procurement teams to make the most of their extra capacity, SourceDay equips procurement teams with advanced tools to proactively manage risks and optimize supplier performance:
- Supplier Performance & Reliability: Evaluate and improve supplier reliability with Supplier Scorecards, Supplier Network Dashboards, industry benchmarks, and risk assessments.
- Item Analysis & Accuracy: Analyze item performance trends, identify inconsistencies, and ensure accurate planning inputs. Features include lead time analysis, item risk identification, and price variation tracking.
Real Results with SourceDay
Organizations leveraging SourceDay’s automation capabilities can achieve significant operational improvements:
- Up to 98% on-time delivery of direct materials.
- Missing parts at production start reduced by 75%, ensuring smooth operations and protecting revenue.
- 22% reduction in buffer stock, lowering inventory carrying costs without compromising production.
- Up to 80% workload reduction, enabling procurement teams to focus on strategic risks and initiatives.
- 20% improvement in OTD to end customers.
Unlock Your Direct Procurement Potential
Supply chain executives face a daunting challenge: balancing the tactical demands of the everyday PO management process with strategic initiatives required to drive lower costs and more resilient supply chains. SourceDay’s automation capabilities allow procurement teams to shift their focus from reactive tasks to proactive strategies that drive measurable business success.
Explore how SourceDay can transform your operations and elevate your team’s strategic impact. Get a demo.
