What’s on the chopping block? – The Impact of COVID on Procurement

COVID-19 had all sorts of impact on procurement functions across the country. We surveyed 202 organisations in 2020 to understand how procurement functions reacted.

While cost savings initially dropped off the radar and were overtaken by supply risk mitigations, by September 2020, 29% of private sector organisations said that their top priority was again savings. Even 21% of public sector respondents said so in July 2020.

So where will all these savings come from to make Australian organisations come out of the other end of the recession? What part of their spend is on the chopping block?

Here are the top categories and how much our study participants expect to save on average:

 

No surprise that most organisations expect savings in travel (40%!), fleet (12%) and facilities maintenance (11%). What is striking is that professional services are to be expected to contribute significantly. Contractors, Management Consultants and Marketing Services will be slashed by between 11% and 16%. Longer term investments into construction and IT will also be reduced, albeit at a lower rate of between 5% and 9%.

To learn more about how organisations will realise these savings, download our ebook.