The value of company purchases is equal to approximately 60% of the company's turnover. In the early 2000s, with the construction of the first supplier portals, digital technologies began to permeate the industry, improving its performance. Today, with the emergence of technologies such as blockchain, big data, augmented reality and artificial intelligence, procurement is at another turning point that SDA Bocconi School of Management, with the research project Digital procurement, has decided to monitor, to draw a map of the level and type of digitization of purchasing activities in Italian companies.
The project stems from the collaboration between SDA Bocconi and the two companies Sap Ariba and Accenture Italia, which will also support the project by contributing their skills and points of view as market leaders in business support services in the procurement area.
«The potential of the most recent digital technologies is very high, especially with a view to integrating corporate supply chains», he says Joseph Stabilini, associate professor of practice of Operations & technology management at SDA Bocconi and scientific director of the research project.
The project intends to know which phases of the purchasing process have been digitized and which technologies have been used. Each choice is analyzed under two profiles. On the one hand, in fact, the choices can be aimed at greater efficiency (cost reduction) of the processes or at their greater effectiveness (time reduction, integration); on the other they can intervene, improving them, on existing operating models or introduce new ones, as happens with the most disruptive technologies.
The research targets large companies, larger than 400 million euros and provides for the collection of data through a questionnaire, with processing of the results anonymously. The professional figure to whom the questionnaire is addressed is the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO).
The research project consists of three main moments:
- event to present the project, the research model and the relevance of the "digital" theme in the purchasing sector, 7 February 2019
- collection of questionnaires and quantitative analyzes and detailed interviews
- event to present the results of the research project, May 2019
The companies that will choose to participate in the project by filling out the questionnaire they will receive not only the results of the research, but also timely feedback aimed at highlighting their position with respect to the general or specific sample (industry, services or specific reference sector).
