On October 18-19, the Procurement & Sourcing Forum, promoted by Inbrasc and Live University on a yearly basis, brought together experts from the B2B procurement market, to talk about the sector’s key trends, at the Grand Mercure Vila Olímpia hotel, in São Paulo.

As partner in one more edition of that event, Mercado Eletrônico invited Priscila Padilha, Superintendent of Supplies at Hidrovias do Brasil and ME customer, to share how her procurement area is preparing itself in the face of new technologies and digital transformation.

In a lecture called “Digital transformation: the challenges of transforming B2B procurement into a strategic area”, Priscila spoke about the main purpose of digitizing the department’s processes, which is to consolidate the supply chain from end to end.

Hidrovias do Brasil, a company of logistics solutions, operates in 5 countries, with inland waterway transport, terminal operations, cabotage and modal integration.

Key gains through procurement digitization

During her lecture, Priscila shared the “before and after” scenarios of digital transformation, with the use of e-Procurement and Supplier Management solutions from Mercado Eletrônico, through a partnership that started in 2020.

The guest showed also their gains in productivity. From Jan 21 to Oct 22, the number of requests increased by 12%. In the same period, the average internal customer service time, within a period of up to 15 days, rose from 76% in 2021 to 84% so far (Oct 2022).

“From the digitization of procurement processes, we reduced compliance risks and achieved a new form of communication with our business partners. There are gains in issues related to governance, transparency and equity”, stated Priscila Padilha.

According to Ms. Padilha, there have been other gains for Hidrovias do Brasil’s procurement area:

  • Traceability of processes, from request to payment
  • Consolidation of processes in a single base
  • Freedom from activities that are merely operational and lacked strategy
  • Less errors when entering tax information on orders
  • Transparency and visibility for suppliers, eliminating the need of a contact
  • On time payment status, and no need for buyer intervention
  • End to end traceability, with auditable bases and systems integration

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See you next time! 😉