IT Procurement Strategy: 10 Key Steps for Stress-Free Sourcing

With the modern workplace becoming increasingly remote and digitalized, effective IT asset procurement is a must for many companies. 

But to make the process smooth and stress-free, it’s important to start with an IT procurement strategy that covers all the bases and crystallizes your approach. 

Here, you’ll learn 10 vital steps for strategic procurement management for every phase of the process. 

What is an IT Procurement Strategy?

IT procurement involves finding and distributing IT assets such as laptops, tablets, and mobile devices to your workforce. 

An IT procurement strategy is the game plan you use to make this process hyper-efficient and can cover the following areas:

• Identifying the business goals behind your global procurement initiatives
• Creating a procurement policy
• Choosing a procurement leader, procurement manager, or chief procurement officer
• Deciding whether you want direct procurement or managed IT services from a third-party provider
• Researching potential suppliers
• Vendor selection
• Choosing the best hardware and software
• Negotiating contracts
• Supply chain management
• IT asset management
• Cybersecurity and licensing management
• Vendor relationship management

A successful procurement strategy goes far beyond simply buying IT assets. It’s designed to make every phase of the procurement process as streamlined as possible to: 

• Increase your odds of finding reputable vendors
• Obtain quality IT assets
• Get great deals with real value
• Lower your costs
• Streamline your supply chain
• Maximize ROI
• Improve cybersecurity
• Ensure industry compliance
• Optimize the overall efficiency of your procurement practice

Rather than buying items on a whim, a solid IT procurement strategy ensures that every step is thoroughly thought through, with nothing left to chance. 

Instead, each procurement decision has a high degree of intentionality, and key stakeholders should be on the same page throughout the process. 

And because a procurement strategy is meant to be iterative, you can continually refine it as you gather more data over time.

10 Steps to Develop an IT Procurement Strategy

Now that we know what a procurement strategy is, as well as the core elements and benefits, let’s dive into the nuts and bolts. 

Here are the fundamentals of building an effective IT procurement strategy, step-by-step. 

1. Embrace Cloud-Based Solutions

When it comes to software apps and platforms, cloud-based systems are the way to go in today’s digital world. 

As compared to on-premise software that runs on your business’s physical hardware, cloud-based software is a far more efficient solution for five main reasons.

• It tends to be less expensive than on-premise software
• It can be deployed quickly
• It’s more scalable to accommodate business growth and changing needs
• It’s ideal for a remote workforce scattered around the world
• Most platforms can be easily integrated with the existing systems you use

And because of the inherent flexibility of cloud-based solutions, it’s easy to mix and match until you find the perfect combination. 

2. Use Risk Management and Compliance Tools

Two critical issues that must be accounted for in procurement operations are cybersecurity threats and compliance with regulations regarding personal data, such as the GDPR and HIPAA.

Whenever you acquire and distribute IT assets to workers, you need to be sure that you’re staying protected from security risks and data breaches.

One of the best ways to do this is by baking risk management and compliance tools into your procurement strategy to ensure you’re not taking unnecessary risks. You can find a comprehensive list of tools in this Indeed guide. 

3. Leverage Mobile Procurement Tools

With a large number of today’s companies employing either fully remote or hybrid workers, it’s smart to integrate mobile procurement tools into your sourcing strategy. 

This allows you to perform core procurement tasks like ordering products, tracking shipping, and handling supplier relationship management conveniently through mobile devices.

In turn, this can result in greater efficiency and better collaboration, regardless of where team members are located. Whether they’re in the same city or spread across the globe, your procurement process shouldn’t miss a beat. 

You can find a detailed list of mobile procurement tools in this guide. 

4. Use a Centralized Digital Procurement Platform

Transparency and collaboration are two key ingredients for successful strategic sourcing. One way to provide both is by using a single procurement software platform, where all information and updates can be conveniently displayed to procurement teams. 

For instance, everyone can easily see which vendors you’re using, purchase order and shipping status, IT asset inventory, which employees have which devices, and much more from one single source of truth. 

This leads the way for convenient procurement management and should eliminate a lot of the confusion that many teams in the past used to face. 

If you have a large workforce with multiple departments involved in IT procurement activity, this is crucial. And even if you have a smaller business with just a few individuals, this is still incredibly helpful for your procurement effort and should make for friction-free workflows.

5. Forge Strategic Vendor Alliances

Taking a one-off approach to vendors is something we usually advise against. 

In most cases, the procurement best practice is to partner with vendors for the long run for the following reasons.

• It’s easier to vet reputable vendors because of hands-on experience
• You can save time by not having to constantly research and evaluate new potential vendors
• It simplifies vendor procurement management
• You may be able to secure better deals at cheaper prices
• You may be able to access new features before other businesses do

Not to mention, a vendor will be better able to understand your unique needs, and you can develop crucial rapport that’s always important for supplier management. 

6. Harness Automation and AI

Gone are the days when every aspect of IT procurement had to be done manually. Through automation and AI, there are a plethora of tasks that can be streamlined without compromising quality. 

With automation, for example, you can use tools to automatically renew software purchases and vendor contracts and process invoices. 

And with AI, you can use it to comb through vast amounts of data to find reputable vendors, assign potential vendors a score, analyze the performance of your IT assets, and identify areas for improvement. 

7. Fortify Cybersecurity at Every Step

We touched on the importance of cybersecurity earlier, as it’s such an integral part of the procurement cycle. Because of the ever-present threats that today’s businesses face, you can’t be too careful with cybersecurity. 

This starts with only choosing professional vendors that use only the most comprehensive, cutting-edge cybersecurity technology to protect their users.

And on your end, you’ll want to be proactive with cybersecurity by:

• Pre-configuring devices to keep employee access to the bare minimum
• Use end-to-end encryption
• Perform ongoing risk assessments

8. Leverage Advanced Analytics for Smarter Decisions

Again, a well-designed procurement strategy should be iterative, where you constantly seek to reduce inefficiencies and improve in every area. 

That’s why advanced analytics should be baked into your strategy, where you analyze things like:

• Supplier performance
• Spending patterns
• System downtime
• Supply chain disruptions
• ROI

By tapping into quantifiable data, you’ll be in the position to fully optimize your procurement strategy and get it firing on all cylinders. 

9. Plan for Scalability and Adaptability

Your business will inevitably evolve, so you want a procurement strategy that’s capable of evolving along with it. Being flexible should ensure you have the wiggle room to accommodate growth and change without creating disruptions to your IT assets. 

This can be done by choosing vendors that have flexible terms and pricing. Also, be sure to discuss flexibility upfront with a supplier and confirm that contracts can be updated to handle your business’s needs.

10. Focus on End-to-End Support for Distributed Teams

With remote and hybrid workforces now being the norm, the final piece of the puzzle is providing team members with robust, end-to-end support wherever they’re located. 

By end-to-end, we mean offering support for each stage in the process, including procurement, shipping, deployment, onboarding, and maintenance. 

Ideally, there will be 24/7 support to accommodate different time zones at any hour of the day. Note that not all vendors will provide human support around the clock, but many have respectable automated/AI support that can handle many requests. 

Let allwhere Make Your Procurement Lifecycle Simple and Stress-Free

There’s a lot that goes into IT procurement, and everything needs to come together seamlessly to ensure your team has the tech they need. 

That’s why having a procurement strategy is so important, as it provides the organization with transparency that’s essential to meeting your objectives. 

Because of the complexities and nuances of the procurement process, many companies now opt to use professional procurement services like allwhere to handle it. 

At allwhere, our procurement team can help you navigate virtually every aspect of the IT procurement process, which includes: 

• Supplier selection
• Securing the right IT assets that meet your business objectives and budget
• Procurement contract management
• Shipping logistics
• Cybersecurity
• Overseeing vendor and employee communication

That way, you can focus on more pressing business tasks while resting easy knowing that procurement professionals handle your IT procurement. Learn more about allwhere’s IT procurement services. 

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