The majority ( 79.4 %) of respondents said their company faces challenges when purchasing B2B software and services and nearly one-third ( 32.1 %) of respondents describe their B2B purchasing process as broken . This appears to lead to significant corporate risk and weak spend controls , with half of the respondents agreeing that stakeholders ( e . g ., executives , finance , legal , IT , security , etc .) lack sufficient visibility into their company ’ s purchasing and approval process . It follows that a majority of respondents ( 70.9 %) also believe most of their processes for initiating purchase requests and approvals for B2B software and services should be automated . The research uncovered a plethora of B2B purchasing challenges and evaluated the opportunity for organisations to improve procurement and accounts payable .

Challenges in B2B purchasing lead to a lack of control over vendors and costs

Despite the high volume of purchase requests and approvals , many respondents in the 2023 Trends in B2B Purchasing research say their business is still using outmoded tools and communication methods in their procurement processes . A majority of respondents rely on legacy forms of communication to manage initial purchase requests for new software and services – including phone calls and texting ( 60.2 %), Microsoft Excel ( 56.8 %) and email ( 53.2 %). The same is true for managing approvals of purchase requests , with email ( 49.2 %), Microsoft Excel ( 47.7 %) and Microsoft Teams ( 30.1 %) listed as the top three tools for communication .

Perhaps as a result of increasingly lean procurement teams and the use of these outdated tools and processes for purchasing , respondents concur that there is a lack of communication and clear processes across both employees and stakeholders . While a majority of respondents ( 71.3 %) indicated they have a uniform process for employees to initiate a purchase request or renewal , more than one-third ( 34 %) of those respondents reported their employees are largely unaware of the process .

These process challenges appear to ultimately lead to a lack of control over vendors and costs , with subpar levels of PO-backed spend and evidence of employees going around the process .

• Only 10.9 % of respondents said 81 % - 100 % of the spend in their organisation is under management or PO-backed .

• Just 15.8 % of respondents said employees at their company don ’ t follow the correct process to initiate a purchase request .

New challenges have also risen in the accounts payable process . One in four respondents stated that their company does not have accounts payable automation software in place . When it comes to payment methods , employees will most frequently use their managers ’ corporate credit cards to complete payments for third-party software and services vendors . This can create an unnecessary burden on the cardholder and create confusion down the line if the payment is not recorded accurately . �

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