Procurement

If you have complete control over the purchasing process in your organisation, you will also see where economies of scale can be achieved. With the functionality of the digital purchasing system you have control over who can order, where and how:

• using a free order form,
• in the webshop of the supplier,
• from an internal catalogue.

Always according to the right procuration schedule.

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Strategic procurement is the goal for many purchasers. In order to achieve this, however, it is first important to get the operational matters in order. If it is clear who purchases what and where, that data can be analysed.

Impact:
Our Spend Cloud perfects operational purchasing and automatically generates reports from the data, allowing you to analyse them and adjust the purchasing strategy.

Arnold van Atten has been purchasing at WelThuis for over 7 years. He says that in the past they sometimes paid an invoice at a venture. If a customer had not registered the receipt, no one knew – except for the customer himself – whether the delivery had already taken place. The creditors’ administration and Purchasing were therefore two separate departments. They did have the wish to come together in one department at WelThuis. The changing climate in health care ensured that this wish was met.

Smaller budgets in healthcare
De zorg verandert, de hiërarchie neemt af en hetzelfde gebeurt met het budget. Voor WelThuis betekende dit dat de helft van de backoffice er tijdens de reorganisatie uitging. Op dat punt waren zij gedwongen kritisch naar hun ondersteunde pakketten te kijken. “Met de helft van het aantal mensen moesten we dezelfde handelingen blijven doen. Bij de zelfsturende teams in de huidige zorgcultuur past ondersteuning door digitale pakketten, maar de pakketten die wij hadden konden dat niet overnemen. Daarnaast koppelden een aantal systemen niet goed met elkaar en wilden we sowieso de hoeveelheid aan pakketten inkrimpen.”

Healthcare changes, the hierarchy decreases and the same happens with the budget. For WelThuis, this meant that half of the back office was laid off during the reorganisation. At that point they were forced to look critically at their supported packages. “With half the number of people, we had to continue to do the same operations. The self-managing teams in the current healthcare culture are supported by digital packages, but the packages we had could not keep up with that. In addition, a number of systems did not interconnect well and we wanted to reduce the amount of packages.”

After switching to ProActive Invoice Processing and Purchasing, WelThuis quickly became accustomed to the software. “We already worked with a system, so the principle was the same. The difference lies in the user-friendliness of this system. This has lead to everyone working on it within a month after the switch.” Ton van Dorp, manager Backoffice, agrees: “I started as a manager in January and did not attend a course. I sat down and was able to work immediately. The system speaks for itself.”

Purchasing mainly uses the link with the web shop of the largest suppliers for food and nursing equipment. “That’s because they already have a good link with the system. And if a match needs to be realized, that happens within a day. I pass along a contact name and then it is arranged smoothly.”

In addition to the web shop links, they also use the catalog. “It contains articles that we purchase from regular suppliers. The funny thing is that more and more managers from our nursing homes view the catalog and choose from it. In the old days they simply called someone from a guide and ordered there. Then we had to add a supplier to the system. An administrative hassle.”

The invoices that the creditor administration receives mainly come digitally in the PDF format. “There are fewer and fewer physical invoices. But that is not where our focus lies. What we are really looking at is whether an order has preceded the invoice. Purchasing and the financial administration now sits together on one group of desks, so there is an interaction now. If an invoice does not have a purchase order number, my colleague only has to look at me. I try to find out immediately where the problem lies.”

For the 3-way matching, ProActive has the option to register the receipt of orders. “In the past, purchasers marked all orders as delivered in one go after one month. Now I see in the progress analysis that the number is increasing and I send a mail from the system to the person concerned.”

ABC-Analysis and Pareto chart
“In the near future we want to work more with reports and analysis. specially the ABC analysis and Pareto chart. With these analyses you can implement improvements at a strategic level. The analyses are covered in all purchasing training courses, but you have to be an Excel expert to work out the 80% and only after a day of tinkering. Now the system does all of this for you. You would almost jump for joy.” According to Ton, this had been on Arnold’s wish list for a long time and he was “been taken care of”.

“As an organisation, we are known for looking for innovation. The danger is that such pilots are difficult to perpetuate. A system such as ProActive fits perfectly into our vision: innovative, but at the same time ensuring efficiency.”