Self-service procurement and spatial separation of requisitioners and operational procurement reduce the quality of purchasing.

At first glance, this appears to be logical. The requisitioner has a new, unknown interface – usually an IT tool – which is used to articulate requirements. This is where typical phenomena such as communication differences, lack of IT know-how, or simple resistance to change appear. Often the key to customer orientation is in the improvement of poor ergonomics of the user interfaces. „The entry screen is not good until anyone can use it right away!“ can be issued as the prime directive. With this in mind, a work group should be formed in advance in cooperation with the developers, the business side, and selected requisitioners. Interactive elements which guide the ­requisitioners to the goal of their orders step by step have proven to be especially helpful. We must emphasize that the requisitioner cannot be made ­responsible for the correct selection of the commodity group, just as one example, if the system does not offer adequate support. Mini-applications which are shrewdly utilized at key points can perform genuine miracles and shorten distances enormously. And a side effect is that purchasing has increased the quality of the PORs even further without necessitating contact to the hotline or the purchaser. In passing, we would mention that there are usually problems at the beginning, but they disappear after the first two or three orders have been submitted because both sides know what needs to be done (learning curve effect). In the ideal case, these problems never occur at all because the IT is self-explanatory.

The purchasing hotline – another call center like all the others?

By no means should the purchasing hotline be a call center like all the others – or do we want annoyed customers and rising incidents of people evading the purchasing department? As the processes are concentrated, there must be compensation for the physical distance which is created. However, there must also be competent help and support available for cases in which all else fails besides the described steps for improvement of the interface. The problems are many and varied, covering a broad range of topics. Sometimes it is only a question, a reference to something that is important, but not top priority. Or there is an acute problem with an order which is critically urgent for the „internal customer“. If it is not possible in such cases to provide quick and specific help, the reputation of the operational procurement will suffer long-term damage because of the – allegedly poor – quality of the hotline. We recommend a hierarchical structure of the hotline owing to this broad diversity. There should be first-level support with a high solution rate from a good knowledge database and a ticket system which gives the callers genuine feedback, supported by a kind of helpline so that the agent, if needed, can take over remote control of the callers‘ PCs. Our project experience tells us that many of the „top ­priority problems“ are concerned solely with technical operation questions and – much more important – cannot wait because they are problems which prevent the users from continuing their work. We want to remark there that this type of hotline and helpline initially will incur costs, but despite the physical distance, they can offer significantly better customer orientation than the frequently quoted classic: „I would have been better off asking my purchasing colleague around the corner; he would certainly have helped me.“ Unlike the telephone, this colleague is not always around – the hotline and helpline, on the other hand, should be manned at all times during working hours.