As supply chains continue to globalize, sourcing and procurement is becoming considerably more difficult. Procurement in general needs to help maintain supplier relationships, track performance, onboard suppliers, and reduce risks. When supply chains are optimizing costs by going global and becoming specialized, this becomes incredibly challenging.

This difficulty makes disruption, well, that much more disruptive. If, for example, 10% of the global supply chain was impacted by a boat run aground in the Suez Canal, sourcing and procurement professionals are often the ones put on the defensive and needing to scramble to find new suppliers and materials. Unfortunately, reaction doesn’t happen immediately. Quickbase’s recent Supply Chain Resiliency Survey, which surveyed over 200 Supply Chain professionals in the U.S. within manufacturing, transportation & warehouse, and retail sectors, found 80% of supply chain professionals find themselves reacting to changes weekly or even daily.

However, the reaction time can be several days. Procurement teams are the ones closest to this work – they need to be able to communicate and pivot rapidly. Without the right tools and processes in place to react to change, and without the visibility into key supplier data and information, sourcing and procurement professionals are going to struggle to react to any changes, no matter how disruptive.