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Here’s How the Food & Beverage Industry Can Use BPA to Improve Purchasing

  • Here’s How the Food & Beverage Industry Can Use BPA to Improve Purchasing

    Here’s How the Food & Beverage Industry Can Use BPA to Improve Purchasing

    In the food and beverage industry, a reliable procurement strategy is vital to success. Whether your company is part of food and beverage production or distribution, you’re just one step in the path food and beverages take from raw materials to consumers. How well you manage procurement, purchasing, and suppliers can make or break a business.

    What you’ll be purchasing depends on the industry niche your company occupies. Food manufacturers have some different procurement needs than restaurants, for example. But in general, companies in the food and beverage industry have several overlapping procurement concerns. You likely deal with perishable items and/or time-sensitive deadlines and need reliable deliveries. Your company probably works with a variety of suppliers, even if you’re a small business, so you need a good way to manage various supplier relationships. You also need to comply with regulations, keep up with customer demands, and manage inventory.

    With such complex procurement needs, the food and beverage industry can benefit greatly from business process automation (BPA) software. A quality procurement solution can give you the technology you need to take control of purchasing and meet the industry-specific challenges you face.

    Heres How the Food Beverage Industry Can Use BPA to Improve Purchasing BPA Software

    Manage Multiple Locations

    If your company has multiple locations, as many in the food and beverage industry do, NextProcess procurement software makes it easy to manage purchasing across locations. Our web-based platform allows all locations to use the same centralized purchasing platform. This system also integrates seamlessly with your existing ERP, helping you manage the supply chain more efficiently across company locations.

    Your company’s procurement department can set up an item catalog, making it easy for employees responsible for purchasing to order pre-approved items from the correct vendors. This ensures contract compliance and simplifies the purchasing process. At each location, employees can validate the purchases after receiving items, streamlining invoice matching before making payments.

    Stay on Top of Inventory and Resupply

    Managing inventory and receiving new orders on time is a key part of success in the food and beverage industry. Often, you’ll be dealing with perishable items, and managing inventory successfully is important to maintain freshness and minimize waste. Even with non-perishable food items and non-food items (like packaging), you probably won’t want to keep huge amounts of inventory around all the time, but you also don’t want to run out.

    Procurement software can help with inventory management and with making sure you place orders at the right time. The software tracks purchases and prevents duplicate orders that would lead to overstock. It also helps you track supplier performance, so you know which suppliers you can trust to consistently deliver orders on time. You’ll have more freedom to choose a lean, agile, or hybrid approach to supply chain management because you’ll have increased control over the purchasing process.

    Keep Track of All Suppliers

    BPA software lets you manage large numbers of suppliers and vendors all in one place. Inside the procurement software, your company can easily manage contracts, track and compare prices, and evaluate new potential suppliers. The software neatly organizes all vendor information. You can pull up information on contracts, negotiated discounts, and other paperwork associated with each vendor.

    You’ll also have the tools to easily monitor vendors for issues, such as a pattern of late deliveries. Plus, the software tools support good relationships with your vendors by facilitating communication. This is especially true if you also automate accounts payable when you automate procurement. NextProcess’s AP software has a vendor portal you can set up so suppliers can log in and update their information or check on the payment status of invoices.

    Heres How the Food Beverage Industry Can Use BPA to Improve Purchasing BPA Saas

    Maintain Supply Chain Visibility

    Your company isn’t the only party interested in where your supplies come from. Increasingly, customers are also demanding improved supply chain visibility. They want to know where their food comes from and how it is made. Maintaining supply chain visibility is a good practice for your company and it lets you reassure customers.

    According to one 2017 study, only 6% of surveyed companies have total supply chain visibility (GEODIS, cited by Finances Online). Implementing procurement automation, centralizing purchasing and record keeping, and using the data collected by the software strategically will all help improve supply chain visibility.

    Support Sustainable Procurement and Purchasing

    A company’s supply chain plays a huge role in creating sustainable business practices. This is true for both environmental sustainability and economic sustainability. There’s a big push in society for healthy food that is environmentally sustainable, and companies in the food and beverage industry can’t afford to ignore that. At the same time, you also need your procurement strategy to be sustainable long-term and contribute to the economic health of your company.

    Purchasing automation supports sustainable procurement by increasing visibility and control, improving data collection, and making it easier to manage relationships with your suppliers. To have a sustainable supply chain, you’ll need to include sustainability requirements in your contracts with suppliers and work with them to keep the supply chain stable.

    Guarantee Quality and Regulation Compliance

    Procurement automation software can’t control the quality of ingredients you receive from suppliers, but it can help your company manage quality control and regulation compliance. Supplier management features support the procurement department’s efforts to shop around and find the best quality for the best prices. You can also use these tools to document and track how well suppliers deliver on their quality promises, and whether they make it right if there’s a problem.

    Automaton software also makes it easier to enforce regulations. For regulations related to purchasing, you can set up the software to automatically enforce your company’s policy. NextProcess software is highly customizable. During implementation, we’ll work with your company to customize the software to support your unique procurement process and enforce specific policies. You can then update these policies as needed.

    If improved control over the purchasing process sounds like something that would help your company, contact NextProcess today. We’ll be happy to answer any questions you have. We’ll also schedule a free demo so you can see our software in action before you make any decisions.

    This article is part of our Automate Your Industry blog series. Click here to read other posts in this series.