A Next-Generation Digital Procurement Workspace Focusing on Information Integration, Automation, Analytics, and Sustainability

Abstract

Recent events such as wars, sanctions, pandemics, and climate change have shown the importance of proper supply network management. A key step in managing supply networks is procurement. We present an approach for realizing a next-generation procurement workspace that aims to facilitate resilience and sustainability. To achieve this, the approach encompasses a novel way of information integration, automation tools as well as analytical techniques. As a result, the procurement can be viewed from the perspective of the environmental impact, comprising and aggregating sustainability scores along the supply chain. We suggest and present an implementation of our approach, which is meanwhile used in a global Fortune 500 company. We further present the results of an empirical evaluation study, where we performed in-depth interviews with the stakeholders of the novel procurement platform to validate its adequacy, usability, and innovativeness.