Pulse of Procurement Report 2013 Asia

Key Takeaways

Executive support for strategic procurement is very strong across Asia

Procurement professionals in eight of ten Asia-based companies say top executives have mandated greater enterprise-level and strategic procurement control and management over corporate spending

Procurement pros score strategic maturity lower than peers in other regions

However, there is also strong evidence to suggest that Asia-based companies intend to catch up and/or surpass their global competitors very quickly through aggressive technology investment and possibly outsourcing as a means for fast-tracking strategic procurement transformation

Strong SUM but lower savings rates among Asia-based companies

While Asia-based companies are on par with other regions for procurement’s spend under management (SUM) percentages, they are slightly below the global average for total cost savings tracked and still well below the best-in-class cost-savings benchmarks established in larger global studies. As with other regions, indirect spending categories present the greatest opportunity for Asia-based companies

Quality of information for procurement has big room for improvement

Procurement professionals across Asia score the quality of strategic business information available to them at better than ‘fair’ but less than ‘good’ and, while technology seems to coincide with better information, it is not the whole story for getting to ‘excellent’ info quality

Functions such as IT, R&D and HR may need greater cultivation by Asia CPOs

While procurement pros score collaborative relationships as strong with corporate and strategic finance executives, there are key collaboration gaps that need to be addressed if procurement strategic transformation is to be sustainable for the longer term