Changing Facets of Procurement Management Market

As Head of Procurement of LoanCare, Jacquelyn oversees every contracting item that comes through the door from technology to business process outsourcing to recruiters and everything in between. The department handles the entire contract negotiation and review process, including agreement updates, renewals and terminations. It also runs Request for Proposals (RFPs) and Request for Information (RFIs) for different types of reviews of items and works closely with other executive teams while deciding who to do business with and how to move forward.

Jacquelyn has more than 11 years of experience in the financial services industry and an MBA from Syracuse University. Prior to LoanCare, she worked in a Oklahoma-based bank and dealt with implementations and oversight of new banking and loan origination systems. She also has worked as the COO of a tech startup that was focused on the automation of the quality control process.

What, according to you, are the major pain points when it comes to the Procurement Management Software space?

One of the most significant pain points have seen is that it is very difficult to find all-encompassing software. The desired software needs to allow the procurement process to function and end in the way the management expects, especially in the financial services industry as we have regulatory obligations. In addition, it must have the capability to integrate AI and machine learning to take the human errors out of the procedure which would allow my team to focus on outliers.

Additionally, many proposals you get are very wordy and lengthy responses, making it difficult to go through all of them and pull-out relevant information. So, we need a tool that can take in those requests, highlight the essential parts, and grade them automatically based on the responses to give us a good first overview of the initial responses. My blue-sky rainbow world would also include the ability to do a financial comparison of the vendors as well for pricing.

Could you tell us about the challenges that are prevalent in the market today?

The biggest challenge that we have seen and are seeing in the market today is the supply chain issue. Everyone from a big organization to a small grocery store has failed to keep their items in stock or stay well-stocked at one point of their operation since the start of the pandemic. The pandemic has brought on the need to diversify and find more diverse suppliers for every organization to ensure a company’s own internal stability. The essential variegation has compelled companies to implement cost-containment strategies to ensure their financial stability to withstand the next market disruption.

Is there any project initiative you are working on to address some of these challenges?

We are working on implementing workflow automation software. Using it, we can automate many processes like sending out RPCs, gathering information, trending the received information, approvals, etc. Utilizing the newly generated workflow, we can provide different departments access to the specific items they want to see from the proposal. Consequently, we can segment the contract agreement so that different departments can only look at the clauses relevant to their expertise. Then, based on the document, they can give their individual views which will allow us track and archive approvals for audit and/or any future questions.

Regarding all the potential disruption and transformations happening in the market, how do you envision the future of procurement management space?

In the next couple of years, we are going to move to a highly digitized and technical market. The pandemic has already accelerated the process, including working from home. COVID also forced some companies to accelerate their digital transformation when they weren't ready. As such, the new digital infrastructure is bound to contain some security vulnerabilities, making them prone to cyber-attacks. The dilemma is that the attacks will only become more prominent, and cybersecurity companies' current level of security is not enough to prevent them. I even observed some vendors who indicated that they can't cling to the level of cybersecurity insurance they previously maintained and are now looking for alternative options. So, even our cybersecurity insurance market is going to change. It may degrade as we move forward in the digitized technical market and toward a remote-type workforce area.

I believe that the most prominent aspect of being successful going forward will be the ability to vet things at a high level to ensure appropriate protections to the company.