Managing Relationships with Suppliers through Brexit Wins Loyalty and Trust for Procurement

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

It came as a shock to the world, when on June 24, 2016, citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union putting an end to a  40-year relationship. Known as “Brexit,” the aftermath of this step showed its mark in the money market, with the pound falling against the dollar. The repercussions of Britain’s exit from the EU, will be felt worldwide, as it’s the fifth largest economy in the world.

My Purchasing Center digs deeper into the much talked about exit of the UK, with Bindiya Vakil, Founder and CEO of Resilinc in a new podcast in which she examined the supply chain implications of Brexit.

Today we live in a globalized world where merchandise is multi-national and raw materials and parts used to make them originate in nations all over the world.  “For example, a typical car may have parts originating from as many as 30 countries,” Vakil says. “The rules and regulations that govern international trade are a critical element of supply chains and of particular interest to procurement professionals who manage these complex relationships.”

The Brexit vote could have quite an effect on the overall supply chain impacting each and every aspect of it.

As one of the more globalized economies, the UK makes up 4% of world GDP. In 2014, was the ninth-largest exporter ($503 billion in 2014) and the fifth-largest importer ($802 billion in 2014). As such, some serious issues  could arise for companies headquartered or manufacturing in the UK

From a procurement angle, more than 50% of the UK’s $500 billion in exports are bound for the European Union. With present account shortfalls at record levels, this fundamentally implies that the UK-based supply chain is profoundly reliant on access to the EU single market to sustain its vigorous financial health.

Qualms about the pound could bring procurement challenges, which will vary with a company’s dependability on the resources they source from  the UK. Deutsche Bank has cautioned that the pound could drop further, and threaten inflation levels may get to a 25-year high of 5.2%.

Suppliers manufacturing within the UK that don’t import raw materials, but export finished goods should be able to offer price reductions to customers.   At the same time, those that import materials and export may suffer monetary losses and falling gross margins as they may end up paying more for imported goods due to currency devaluation.

No wonder Brexit poses challenges. Acquiring affordable skilled labor is another concern. It may become more costly to hire, further squeezing margins for struggling businesses. As Vakil sees it, limited movement of labor is expected to play a large role in the availability of cheap and affordable labor and is a deterministic factor in Reslinc’s prediction of the decline of manufacturing activity within the UK. “In coming months, we expect most global companies with manufacturing facilities in the UK to consider plans to relocate operations in anticipation of upcoming labor shortages” she says.

On the other hand, UK exporters may no longer enjoy fast clearing through Customs.

“Brexit put trade deals into question, and what this means for many companies, is that their total landed cost will now be substantially different, if higher tariffs get imposed by the UK as a non EU member,” Vakil says.  “Once the new rules are implemented, in the mid-term, logistics professionals could expect greater customs clearance timeframes on products exported to the EU.”

Brexit Opportunities and Risks for Supply Chain

The vote presents opportunities and risks for supply chain. Key risks being the following:

• Component prices going up.

• Landed cost of products increasing medium term with new tariffs going into play.

• Cost of labor and other essentials increasing in an inflationary scenario.

• Suppliers going into financial distress.

Brexit may also open doors for supply chain and procurement professionals who understand the supplier base and supply chain mapping. For instance, some may now find EU markets more accessible, with minimal tariffs, as low currency rates might prove to be very advantageous to exporters. They can use this opportunity to lock in lower prices with suppliers, if possible and applicable, particularly for high spend components originating in the UK, Vakil says.

Wealthy companies with the financial wherewithal to withstand a few years of uncertainty are likely to find that many basically solid and vigorous UK businesses are abruptly excellent acquisition targets while the currency is  so favorable. Many Chinese, Indian and U.S companies on expansion sprees across Europe could benefit.

In summary, one must have thorough knowledge of the supply chain to sustain resiliency. To track performance, companies must know their tier 1 suppliers located in the UK and UK-based sub-tier suppliers they depend upon. Vakil suggests procurement professionals keep an eye on U.K.- based supplier and sub-tier supplier operational and financial metrics,  watching for early indicators of problems, particularly weak financials.

For critical suppliers, Vakil suggests preparing robust extenuation strategies and timeframes to implement them. Furthermore, “a very significant discipline in possibly rough times is to invest in strong supplier relationships: Resilient suppliers equate to continued supply. Customers who work closely with suppliers during tough times win their loyalty and trust”.

Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, Brexit Risk and Opportunity: Understand Supply Chain

Eye to External Important Part of Procurement Role

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Each year, ProcureCon and My Purchasing Center honor six talented procurement professionals striving for outstanding sourcing and supply management results with the Excellence in Purchasing Indirect Categories Awards. The EPIC Rising Star Award recognizes a procurement professional who is new to the field of indirect and shows exceptional potential to grow in his or her career.

This year, the EPIC Rising Star Award goes to Kendra Lisak, Sourcing Manager at Amway. Lisak recently spoke with My Purchasing Center in a podcast interview. Lisak, who has a degree in supply chain management from Michigan State University, credits her education (that included three internships) with helping her to choose a career in indirect procurement. With Amway for nearly three years, Lisak currently supports sourcing’s partners in human resources on the temporary labor spend category.

She also serves as strategist for the global leadership team within procurement. In our interview, she shared three challenges facing procurement professionals responsible for sourcing temp labor. The first is the conflicting needs and wants of many individuals in manufacturing, planning, IT on Amway’s mile-long campus. The key, Lisak says, is ensuring the managed services provider is contracting with the right suppliers to meet the needs of the business. She also points out the need to track ever changing government regulations which may influence the company’s pay, position in the marketplace and contractual relationships.

“As you may know, the Affordable Care Act and minimum wage increases introduce complexity to the sourcing process,” she says. Another challenge–and possibly the biggest–is educating many individuals on the sourcing process for temporary labor. “I think of myself as the liaison between what Amway needs and how a supplier can rise up to meet those needs,” Lisak says. In addition to her demanding role at Amway, Lisak is actively involved with the Grand Rapids community including participating in Start Garden, which helps fund start-up companies.

She’s attended the Michigan Small Business supplier conference to, in her words, “understand what small businesses are available to us and how we can support the Michigan economy. “Having an eye to the external by bringing new ideas to Amway is an important part of my job in procurement,” she says. Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, 2016 EPIC Rising Star Talks Temp Labor Sourcing Challenges Also see the My Purchasing Center article, 2016 EPIC Awards Recognize Indirect Procurement Value

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/mro-indirect/blogs/eye-external-important-part-procurement-role/#sthash.IocVyHcX.dpuf

Even a Small Penny Part Can Disrupt the Electronics Supply Chain

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Calling the earthquake that hit southern Taiwan in February “a major wake-up call” for procurement professionals managing electronics supply chains, Bindiya Vakil, CEO at Resilinc, describes the repercussions and their affects in a new podcast at My Purchasing Center. She also offers some suggestions so procurement pros can be more prepared in the event another disaster strikes. 

And it will. Whether that disaster is natural like the earthquake or man made—geopolitical or terrorist—it’s important for procurement to have a clear understanding of how their companies’ supply chains work and what to do to be ready for a disruption.  Measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale, the earthquake was the deadliest to hit the island since 1999. It also affected wafer fabrication companies and subcontractors in the region, with most reporting damage to the work in process wafer. 

As electronics buyers know, the technology is complex and requires supreme precision. The most undetectable vibrations can have an impact. In the days following the quake, TSMC reported that 1% of its first-quarter shipments were affected. USC also communicated that its wafer in process was impacted. Clean up and line reconfiguration contributed to the delays. 

“This is very constrained capacity,” Vakil says. “Some companies are still winging supply chain management. It’s risky. They are almost gambling with shareholder funds. Often they do not know which company makes which part for them.” She explains that in the event of a disaster, sufficient supplies of critical components may not be available in the required quantities at the right time. “Companies don’t have basic information they need to manage this proactively, or even after it happens,” she says. “Even a small part is important if you want to ship your product.” 

Most companies are still managing only the top 80% of their spend, and often don’t even have contact information readily available on the rest of their suppliers. On the other hand, leaders at supply chain resiliency are actively mapping their supply chains, knowing where parts originate, which suppliers are critical to the supply chain and how critical and why. They’re the first to respond and to recover.  “We believe this earthquake should be making supply chain practitioners shake with fear,” Vakil says.

“The strategic importance of Taiwan to the global economy cannot be exaggerated. Just about every company you can think of uses electronic components and these products probably have at least one part that touches Taiwan….And given that we can’t ship a product with one part missing, we can quickly see how a disruption that strikes this region could paralyze the supply chain for months.” Wafer fab production currently runs at excess of 90%, and manufacturers cannot create more capacity fast enough to meet demand. “Supply chain practitioners need to take steps to protect themselves,” Vakil says. “Not everyone will be equally impacted.

Information is power. Those who have it own competitive advantage.”   Finally, in the podcast, Vakil offers these tips: “The first step in the right direction is to understand the nature of the threats and the potential impact. Knowing what your dependency is on these types of global hotspots is critical.  Map your supply chain, understand it at a granular level, engage, collaborate with suppliers, and understand how you can work jointly to protect yourselves. Put a program in place that can notify you quickly about events like this. Look at business risk strategically, and better understand and address the threats.” Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, Supply Chain Disruptions Should Have Procurement Shaking

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/electronics/blogs/even-small-penny-part-can-disrupt-electronics-supply-chain/#sthash.t1QxPGbq.dpuf

One Version of Truth Enhances Supplier Relationship Value

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Contract life-cycle management provides procurement with one version of the truth, and, as such, helps organizations to see the real value of relationships with suppliers.

So says Samir Bodas, CEO of Icertis, in a podcast interview with My Purchasing Center.

In the podcast, Bodas recounts a list of challenges procurement runs up against as it partners with IT on certain corporate initiatives, such as contract lifecycle management. These are:

Fragmented systems and data
User adoption
Lack of integration
Lack of insight from analytics
Bodas also discusses the benefits gained from implementing and using contract lifecycle management systems by providing a quick sketch of principal processes used by organizations: sourcing, contracts and procurement. Contract management, he says, “bridges the fragmentation and brings together data across the enterprise.”

Finally, Bodas offers a series of success tips for procurement professionals:

Think of CLM globally.
Make sure the CLM system is easy to use, adopt and deploy.
Make sure the CLM system is integrated and receives support from the c-suite.
Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast interview, Contract Management Systems Bridge Fragmented Data.

-See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/technology/technology-blogs/one-version-truth-enhances-supplier-relationship-value/#sthash.ZF8G4BIP.dpuf

Seal Software Helps Overcome Data Breaches.

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

With the world becoming more interconnected, business professionals must emphasize more upon security of their organizations. Day to day newspapers are flooded with stories of hackers bringing organizations to their knees, with frequent, more calculated and widespread cyberattacks, as evinced by recent hacks involving financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase & Co., home improvement retailer The Home Depot and e-commerce giant eBay Inc.

With the propagation of such attacks and subsequent breaches, establishments are defied to find ways to defend their data assets and create a proper response plan. This is particularly significant for companies that engross with multiple third-party sellers, store personally recognizable information or uphold highly valued patent portfolios.

Research shows that 78% of establishments have experienced a data breach in the past two years. That’s a horrifically large number. “The significances of a data breach for an organization can be huge,” says Lloyd Alexander, Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Seal Software in a podcast interview. “Just look at Target. That data breach happened nearly two years ago and we still reference it when talking about one of the worst data breaches we’ve ever seen”.

The largest repercussions of a data breach can usually be seen in two main areas:

Financial: The financial damage of a data breach can extend beyond losses of revenue and providing compensation for the affected customers. Companies might also have to face regulatory fines.
Reputational: The reputational impact of a data breach can be one of the hardest to measure and overcome.
Thus, in response to a breach which has already occurred, the following could be taken into account:

A company’s procurement department likely holds most of the contracts. This means procurement teams needs to be thinking about the number of vendors and suppliers a data breach could impact.
A company must also know their obligations to those vendors and suppliers after a data breach – how long do you have to notify a company or individual? What fines could you face? This is a lot of information to keep track of and even harder information to track down in the middle a chaotic data breach.

This is where Seal Software can help. Seal’s technology allows procurement teams to access all of that information nearly instantaneously, making sure they follow the proper protocol laid out in each vendor and supplier contract. This will save time and money, and most important, reputation.

Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, Data Breach Terms Need to be in Procurement Contracts.

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/purchasing/blogs/seal-software-helps-overcome-data-breaches/#sthash.gRprR2Ia.dpuf

CCTY Bearing Takes Bold Step, Posts Scorecards.

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Sourcing teams searching for new bearings suppliers now have a tool they can use to help in the selection process. CCTY Bearing, a manufacturer of bearings, rod ends and assemblies based in Lake Zurich, Ill., is posting its customer scorecards on its website.  Evan Poulakidas, Director, North America at CCTY Bearing, tells My Purchasing Center in a new podcast interview that sharing the grades–both good and bad–was a difficult decision, but is a way to present the 20-year-old company and its capabilities to procurement and engineering managers.

“It gives those who don’t know us another matrix to review,” he says, adding that scorecards are very important for sourcing teams at OEMs deciding whether to keep or let go of suppliers.”  While each is unique, scorecards measure such supplier performance metrics as quality and ontime delivery, two which Poulakidas considers the most critical. He points out that CCTY Bearing “shoots for zero parts per million (ppm) and 100% ontime delivery,” and, says that “in most cases, we meet these.”

In posting the scorecards, CCTY Bearing does not share the names of  its customers, citing NDA (Non Disclosure Agreements) in its contracts. So far, reaction from customers and potential customers has been “incredibly positive,” Poulakidas says.

On the podcast, he suggests sourcing teams keep an open mind about taking on additional suppliers, and reminds My Purchasing Center that CCTY Bearing is building a 75,000 sq. ft. “state-of-the-art” plant. “Look at what we’re doing and how transparent we are with customers,” he tells My Purchasing Center podcast listeners.

“Give us and other young companies an opportunity.”   Procurement? Bearings suppliers–manufacturers and distributors–? My Purchasing Center would love to know what you think about this–posting customer scorecards online. You may voice your opinion by responding to this blog.  Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, Customer Scorecards Tell Bearing Company Story.

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/purchasing/blogs/ccty-bearing-takes-bold-step-posts-scorecards/#sthash.vgPtsH47.dpuf

Payment Term Discount Calculator App Signals Green to Go

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Cost & Capital Partners, a management consulting firm, has developed a Payment Term Discount Calculator App for Apple and Android devices.

In a new podcast interview with My Purchasing Center, Tom Bokowy, Senior Partner, describes the new app and how it works.   First about the company: Cost & Capital Partners works with companies to help improve the results of negotiations and execute category strategies, Bokowy says. “I founded Cost & Capital seven years ago because I saw an opportunity for organizations to work strategically on supply chain challenges to generate value.

This allows me to combine strategy development and team development, my two favorite components of project work.”  Early payment discounts is a hot topic for procurement and supply leaders today and has been trending lately. CFOs have in full swing started realizing the value of strategic sourcing which implies that the procurement function is no longer seen as just transactional, but also a vehicle to help the organization achieve corporate monetarist goals.

CFOs and supply chain leaders apprehend that working capital and thus shareholder value can be directly affected by the procurement function. “We have seen many companies with initiatives related to extending payment terms in order to reduce working capital,” Bokowy says. “The problem is that most suppliers push back, or find ways to increase pricing to make up for the impact of the payment terms.

During negotiations, we have seen procurement struggle with evaluating a payment term and discount offered by the supplier.  The challenge is in identifying not only the cost savings, but also the impact on working capital.” Bokowy explains that as he watched buyers struggle with how to evaluate payment term discounts offered by suppliers, Cost & Capital Partners developed a tool for mobile devices that can be used to see not only the cost savings benefit, but also the impact on working capital from selecting these options.

  How it works: Procurement professionals put in the discount presented, the change in payment term days, the internal cost of capital as provided by corporate treasury, and the bill amount. The tool then mechanically let them know if the deal makes economic sense, with a green result for positive and a red result for negative. Bokowy adds that a CFO or treasurer would evaluate the deal the same way.

As Bokowy sees it, in negotiations, the side with the best and most accurate information typically gets the better deal. This comprises of intelligence about the supplier and industry, understanding cost drivers and access to tools like the payment term calculator to provide feedback immediately during a negotiation. Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast interview, In Negotiations, Accurate Information Results in a Better Deal

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/technology/technology-blogs/payment-term-discount-calculator-app-signals-green-go/#sthash.rPRcbqIS.dpuf

State of the Supply Chain: Cost Focus and No Chief Officer.

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Gone are the days when managing a supply chain to be cost effective was enough. Now, supply chains are big, global, distributed and occasionally disrupted.  That’s why manufacturers could use a Chief Supply Chain Officer, says Greg Kefer, Vice President, Corporate Marketing at G.T. Nexus, in a new podcast interview with My Purchasing Center.

As Kefer sees it, the only way manufacturers can have a strategic advantage is to have a leader with a holistic view of the supply chain to drive that vision.  Kefer is speaking to the G.T. Nexus State of the Supply Chain: A Research Report on the Top Issues Facing Industry Executives for 2016 and Beyond. Of the 250 manufacturing executives surveyed, 76% say their companies don’t have a representative from the supply chain in the c-suite.  “This tells me they’re still very cost focused and more exposed to pain when things go sideways,” he says.

“As disruptions crush them, and they miss opportunities to move into new regions, competitors will take share.” Other survey findings are less disappointing to Kefer, who expected to–and was able to–confirm anecdotes that show more manufacturers are outsourcing their supply chains. And the reason they outsource? It’s less costly.  “When you talk about supply chain, it’s really about working with a network of suppliers, transportation providers and financial institutions and all these different players in the world and coordinating that to be successful,” he says.

Going forward, Kefer suggests procurement and supply chain management professionals at manufacturing companies look beyond costs because relationships with suppliers are strategic and long term. “It doesn’t do a buyer good to force suppliers to drive costs down so they can’t afford to put sprinklers in their factory,” he says. “They don’t want to be a part of that.” On technology, Kefer notes his disappointment that supply chain visibility didn’t score higher with survey respondents.

“It plays into how we respond to a disruption,” he says. “An ability to see is a first move. Without it, you’re guessing and you can’t afford to do this.” Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast interview, Why Companies Need a Supply Chain Officer

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/logistics/blogs/state-supply-chain-cost-focus-and-no-chief-officer/#sthash.dAmxDfJD.dpuf

Procurious Takes Step with Alliances

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Going forward it is quite imperative to continuously ripen one’s skills and inflate one’s worldwide professional network. Thus it is essential to connect and collaborate with other procurement professionals and take on a more innovative professional outlook.

Procurious, an online business community for procurement and supply chain professionals offering career advancement, professional development and networking, has reached a milestone in its membership and created a new alliance which is participating in its annual Big Ideas Summit this spring.

First, more than 11,500 procurement and supply chain professionals worldwide are now Procurious members. The community launched in November, 2014.

“Our membership is growing very strongly,” Tania Seary, Founding Chairman, tells My Purchasing Center in a podcast interview. “We are fulfilling our mission, which is to build a global network that will help empower the procurement community.”

Seary points out that CPOs now have a seat near the CEO in the board room and skills valued by management. “We moved beyond costs into branding and risk management,” she says. “With supply chain disruptions, we see it’s important to be connected to news on what’s impacting the supply chain so we can respond quickly.”

As part of the mission of Procurious, Seary hopes members will begin “to create muscle by working together to solve problems.” She says procurement “can work with people in the community to perhaps find alternative suppliers to combat risk…which can impact share price.”

In the podcast, Seary describes the new alliance with the Institute for Supply Management and The Hackett Group. Here are details:

• The Institute for Supply Management has become a Procurious Foundation Partner. This increases Procurious members’ access to ISM research, events and educational offerings, from certification programs to the ISM Mastery Model. ISM members will also benefit from educational resources and networking opportunities on Procurious.

• ISM and The Hackett Group, a leading strategic consultancy and enterprise benchmarking firm, will sponsor Procurious’ annual Big Ideas Summit, a digital forum on procurement. The event takes place in London on April 21 and be shared online to Procurious’ full membership and social media followers. Tom Derry, CEO of ISM, and Chris Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader, The Hackett Group, will be among the speakers.

“We are delighted they are working with us,” she says. “The relationship, which helps increase the level of competence of the whole community, sends a strong message to procurement professionals dedicated to developing the next generation of procurement leaders.”

Perhaps this is the right time to jump into the field of procurement and moreover contribute efficiently in maintaining cost leadership while preventing disruptions in supply chain thereby resulting in innovation and growth.

To hear more from Tania Seary on Procurious, the alliance with ISM and The Hackett Group, the Big Ideas Summit and what she sees as the four big issues facing procurement, listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, Procurious Partners with ISM and The Hackett Group.

– See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/purchasing/blogs/procurious-takes-step-alliances/#sthash.cDsuafcD.dpuf

Adobe Initiative Moves Procurement from Pen and Ink.

By Nikita Saharia Chaturvedi

Adobe recently unveiled Adobe Document Cloud as a contemporary way for people to cope with documents they care about at office and home. Unknowingly everybody takes into use an enormous amount of paper in their routine lives in numerous tasks ranging from school permission slips, health insurance forms and more importantly procurement’s complicated documents and contracts. “So, at Adobe, we set out to change how people manage all that paper,” Conrad Smith, Senior Director of Global Procurement at Adobe, tells My Purchasing Center in a new podcast on Adobe Document Cloud, and how it affects procurement professionals.

Document Cloud is built around the latest version of Acrobat—Adobe Acrobat DC—and is designed to act as a repository for all documents. It lets people create, review, approve, and track documents across all their devices—at their desks and on their phones. It also possesses a feature called eSign; an e-signatures offering, so people can sign and send documents from any device, on the fly.

Moving on to the latest buzz–e-signatures, a partnership with Dropbox, and innovation delivered to subscribers of Acrobat DC. While talking about this tremendous initiative with My Purchasing Center Smith said that Adobe has introduced some significant new capabilities for subscribers. “We made eSign more powerful than ever, with features like workflow automation for business processes, such as high limit procurement card requests and approvals,” Smith said.

As he sees it, it’s quite helpful when people sign an agreement with their own name or signature as it feels like more of a commitment to follow the rules than when they simply click ‘accept’ or some other button. Adobe has also incorporated digital signatures into eSign, which allows users to verify a document’s authenticity and integrity. It allows users to confirm the identity of each signer and that the document hasn’t been altered in transit.

Talking specifically about Adobe’s milestone partnership with Dropbox to make it easier for users to work with PDF files in Dropbox, Smith said: “We’ve integrated our applications so that users can access and act on PDF files stored in Dropbox directly from within Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, and save them back automatically to their Dropbox accounts. And Dropbox users can open, edit and save PDF documents in the Adobe apps directly from Dropbox services and apps. It’s desktop only for now, but we’ll be adding these capabilities and more to iPhones and iPads soon, and Android devices next year.”

Another benefit of an Acrobat DC subscription is new innovations and enhancements for subscribers on a rolling basis. As promised, Adobe delivered features like tabbed viewing, more “Photoshop magic” with camera-to-PDF conversion, and more to Acrobat DC subscribers. This initiative of Adobe means that procurement can now easily move from a pen, ink and paper process to a fully integrated contract process. Almost every person or business involved in drafting and implementing contract documents reaches a point where they convert it to PDF and send it. Inevitably it’s printed, signed, scanned and emailed back, where it might be printed, signed, scanned and archived. Now procurement can skip all that administrative headache and work the whole process electronically. “

Smith exclaimed, “For us at Adobe, we implemented eSign at the tail end of our contracting process re-engineering.  We invested huge efforts to take as many days as possible out of the process.  We had spent almost a year sorting through various challenges and had cut the contract process in half.  When we shifted to eSign, we were able to remove 10-20% from the process time.”   Conclusively, the new document cloud is completely revamped and includes some very cool efficiency tools like ‘send and track’ and eSign to name a few.

Acrobat is a great app and fill and sign allows quick and easy transition from whatever paper you might have to a quick/easy electronic version than can easily be emailed to your kid’s teacher, coach, or whoever sent that paper form. If procurement teams aren’t already using electronic signatures they are missing a great opportunity to quickly improve their operations with minimal cost.

Listen to the My Purchasing Center podcast, Adobe Procurement Leader Tests New Products     – See more at: http://www.mypurchasingcenter.com/technology/technology-blogs/adobe-initiative-moves-procurement-pen-and-ink/#sthash.4HpqnQrY.dpuf