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It is a hectic time of the year for him the world-famous procurement expert, Santa Claus, but we are grateful that he has agreed for this interview. In this, Santa Claus shares with us some fascinating insights on how he is using procurement automation to make sure he delivers all his gifts on time. We were delighted he could spare some of his for this rendezvous.

You have been delivering gifts all these years on time without fail! You must be facing a lot of challenges while procuring all these gifts. How do you manage?

Ah! Well, yes, I do face a lot of challenges, but I have an excellent team that makes my job easy. Now since the whole world has gone digital, I am using procurement automation that has made gift delivery process easy and efficient.

To buy this humongous number of presents, you must be having a powerful supplier management strategy in place. How do you implement it?

Absolutely! We work with numerous suppliers across the globe. We foster long term partnerships to reduce costs and provide the best quality. Procurement automation enabled by Zycus’s iSupplier and iPerform modules has made my life a lot easier. They help me on-board suppliers and measure supplier performance by reducing supply chain risk.

You are a sort of procurement expert, would you like to say something about the procurement knowledge you have gained over the years?

I categorize my procurement requirement according to The Purchasing Portfolio, Kraljic, 1983

Routine (Low risk and low spend)

For my routine gifts, for example, books, clothes, toys I use Contract Management so that my maverick spend is less.

Leverage (Low risk and high spend)

These are the commodities commonly used across the entire organization with high volume. Even for gifts for which a few suppliers serve markets with extensive distribution networks. I use Catalogue Management software to reduce the time spent looking for items and track order prices and history.

Bottleneck (High risk and low spend)

These are for highly specialized goods, services or works. For requests like, a solar-powered toy car often there are only a few potential suppliers, and usually there are only a few transactions in this category car I make use of the Procure-to-Pay Solution which helps me in Inventory Management and Dynamic Discounting so that I can manage my spends well.

Strategic (High risk and high spend)

Represents goods, services, or works that are critical to the process. This often requires innovative solutions and high-level expertise from suppliers. The Complete Source-to-Pay Suite has made my life easy by providing by helping me manage relationship and performance through regimes and systems which are essential to secure value for money and reduce risk.

We hope you enjoyed the interview. Thank you so much, we appreciate your time!

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