If you’re responsible for a procurement at any enterprise in 2025, the chances are digitalisation is already on your mind.
The question shouldn’t be why you should move away from costly, time-consuming manual operations and digitise your procurement process… it should be why you digitise this year.
It should be why you move fast and digitise procurement now… while others are still stuck with outdated, ineffective systems.
Because the gap between organisations still running manual procurement processes and those with modern, digitised platforms is widening, and it’s costing slower movers more than you might think.
If you’re a procurement or finance leader evaluating your options, here are five compelling reasons why 2025 is the year to make the move to digitalisation.
1. Reduce costs throughout your process
As a budget holder – or someone responsible for procurement finance at your organisation – you only really need one reason to digitise your process. Lower costs.
You won’t just lower costs with streamlined operations, consolidated suppliers and better rates. You’ll lower costs by eliminating waste throughout your procurement process.
With a digital procurement platform like IR Tech’s, you can:
- Minimize manual processing saving time and staffing costs, with no more stocking, packing and shipping requirements
- Eliminate warehouse and storage costs, with supplies shipped directly to end users through dedicated fulfilment networks like Amazon Business
- Halve returns and waste, by giving platform users the freedom to choose and tailor the precise supplies they need
2. Deploy in week not months
One of the biggest barriers to digitisation is implementation. Too many digital procurements are ‘built-from-scratch’ and take 18-24 months to design and implement.
You can’t afford to wait that long. Nor should you have to.
Not if you choose the right platform to support your digital procurement transformation.
At IR Tech, your platform is already built. It’s a mature, proven platform that can simply be customised to your existing procurement process.
- We connect your suppliers via our purpose-built API
- We create a fully branded interface where your users make purchases with points for tender optionality
- We set up fulfilment partners to ensure direct, end-user distribution
The whole process takes weeks, not months or years, because the cutting-edge infrastructure already exists (used by organisations like United Airlines and Hilcorp Energy).
We just adapt it for your procurement requirements.
3. Get real-time budget visibility
Another challenge to any procurement process is keeping track of procurement spend. With multiple moving parts and hundreds (if not thousands) of employees, it can easily get out of hand.
Digitising procurement makes budget monitoring easier than ever.
With a modern platform built specifically for procurement processes, you’ll get an instantly accessible front-end dashboard which shows:
- Real-time numbers on spending by department, category, supplier, and approver
- Clear workflows approvals to route high-value orders to the right place (with audit trials)
- Budget controls and individual limits that prevent overspend before it happens – managed spend at its most seamless
- Instant reporting for month-end close, audit requests, or board presentations
With an IR Tech digital procurement platform, you get full visibility, full budget control.
4. Improve your employees’ satisfaction
Most employees dislike traditional, manual procurement platforms.
Not because they’re difficult. Because the process is difficult.
Multiple supplier log-ins. Or an inability to find sizes, styles, colours, department needs. Or a complicated checkout. Or days wasted waiting for approvals, confirmations and delivery… a delivery that’s often to a single fixed location (not direct to employee).
But if you can digitise and simplify this whole process with:
- A single, intuitive interface where employees find what they need, order it, and track delivery, all in one place. You can even pre-determine the products which they can see by user permissions
- Mobile-ready access so they can order from their phone, not just a desktop at the office, with single sign on integrations to improve your UX
- Personalised experiences that show them only what’s relevant to their role (e.g. pilots see pilot uniforms, carers see products relevant to their clients)
- Amazon-quality checkout and delivery with familiar, fast fulfillment they already trust – using any form of cash or points as currency
Then you’ll make employee compliance a whole lot easier. A whole lot faster. And you’ll find employees happier and more satisfied.
5. Secure and future-proof your tech stack
Finally, an investment in a digitalised procurement process today will make sure your organization is prepared for the future… if you choose the right platform.
With technology rapidly advancing and supplier preferences constantly shifting, your manual set-up simply can’t keep up.
But if you invest in a new custom-built system, you might also find it’s quickly outdated (sometimes before you’ve even launched).
A modern, configurable platform like IR Tech’s bridges that gap – giving you the latest technology that can constantly flex to new developments and changing requirements.
It:
- Updates continuously with new features, integrations, and improvements, without costly redevelopment
- Integrates with any system or supplier, both manufacturer and fulfilment agnostic, so you never need to rip and replace everything
- Scales effortlessly as you grow, add new suppliers, expand to new regions, or onboard more users
- Stays secure and compliant with evolving regulations like GDPR and ISO 27001 because the platform is maintained and certified at the infrastructure level
Time to modernise your procurement process?
When 65% of procurement leaders rank digital transformation as the most important initiative for 2025 (according to a recent industry State of Procurement report), your organisation can’t afford to delay.
You can’t afford to waste any more budget or time on outdated, ineffective manual processing.
The good news is that transformation doesn’t have to be difficult. It doesn’t have to take years.
These 5 reasons to digitise your procurement platform should give you a hint at what’s possible, what IR Tech platforms have already delivered with organisations like United Airlines, Hilcorp energy and many more.
Book a demo today, and we’ll show you exactly what digitised procurement could mean for your enterprise.
