Digital Procurement Service

Barkers > Digital Procurement Service

Digital Procurement Service

Barkers have been recognised by Consultancy.UK as a Gold Procurement Consultancy Firm. Consultancy.UK recognise those organisations leading the way in procurement consultancy within the UK with organisations assessed on their procurement capabilities, company reputation, analyst benchmarks, industry recognitions, thought leadership and more.

Find out more

Aspire to achieve

Efficiencies in standard procurement processes enabling greater time to be spent on strategic as opposed to operational activities.
High levels of adoption of digital procurement technologies coupled with user expertise.
Inspired and enthused teams capable of delivering digital procurement solutions effectively.
Faster delivery of cashable business benefits.

We provide a Coupa Implementation Service

Find out more

Why Choose Us

Business Value Experts

In addition to offering digital technology solutions and supporting the successful adoption of these through our role as technology integration and project management specialists, our team have all led procurement functions and understand what drives real business value. We bring decades of practical experience to each implementation project to ensure clients gain from our experience.

Humans not Robots

We excel in our relentless focus on the human element of digital transformation. We understand that whilst technology is key, adoption and acceptance is paramount. Our team consist of behavioural science experts who use their outstanding knowledge in behavioural science principles, to motivate, enable and empower procurement teams adopting new technologies.

Long-Term Solutions

We are digital procurement advisers who focus upon sustainable solutions. Technology changes at pace, but at Barkers we can guarantee that we are one step ahead, partnering with providers who ensure that the technology of today is ready to meet the procurement challenges of tomorrow.

Features of Digital Procurement Solutions

Digital technologies have the power to transform procurement departments.

At Barkers we offer the following digital procurement services:

Barkers’ Digital Tools and Dashboards
Digital Implementation Services
Digital Solution Advice

Barkers’ Digital Tools and Dashboards

Barkers has developed a unique range of Digital Procurement Services tools to support our clients. Our tools are unique because they are built by procurement and commercial practitioners not IT product development teams working off poorly defined system requirements.

Using the latest generation of industry standard tools, we’ve built workflow automation, data analytics and category planning tools that work in the real world. Each tool subscription comes with the professional services needed to engage teams in their usage and are fully customisable to suit working practices.

Our digital tools include:

Procurement maturity assessment and recommendations
Skills, behaviours and change readiness assessment and recommendations
Digital dashboards and category management

Barkers’ sourcing self-assessment tools allow Procurement Leaders to hone-in on areas for improvement and understand how other modules from our digital suite can support that journey.

Barkers provides a bespoke procurement hub enabling clients to understand organisational need and opportunity, improve planning and execution, manage risk, and improve Supplier Relationship Management capability. Our demonstration tool below brings this to life.

Digital Implementation Services

At Barkers we only partner with recognised industry leaders to provide digital implementation services. We are proud to be recognised as approved Coupa partners for the SME and Mid-Tier markets in the UK and Ireland.

Coupa are renowned for offering one of the world’ leading cloud-based business spend management platforms unifying supply chain, procurement, payments and treasury. Find out more about Coupa’s digital solution.

Digital Solution Advisers

We are Digital Solution Advisers and support clients to select and successfully embed digital technologies to optimise procurement functions. Our behaviour and change management expertise makes us uniquely placed to offer support and guidance to successfully oversee the introduction of cutting-edge technologies, driving higher adoption and satisfaction rates from existing teams. This in turn delivers cashable business benefits faster.

“Barkers didn’t come to the table with pre-conceived ideas as to what the solution should look like. They really started to unpick what the actual layers of the problem were. I believe that has been a far more effective way of delivering a successful solution.”

Alan Hartley, Head Of Procurement & Supply Chain, Sellafield

Outcomes

By introducing digital technologies, clients can expect the following outcomes:

Powerful and easy e-procurement
Streamlined systems and processes
Consistency of spend
Engaged and informed stakeholders
Smarter supply chain decision making
Strategic sourcing
Robust and up to date analytics
Enhanced supplier and risk management

Achieve your business ambitions with Barkers

CASE STUDIES

We have been working with Barkers for nearly 10 months and they have successfully delivered Coupa to four divisions of our organisation which is going through huge change and the centralisation of many functions. This has created many obstacles for the project team to overcome, but all Barkers team members have taken this in their stride and dealt with difficult scenarios professionally. Their pragmatic, flexible and personable approach has been extremely valuable to our delivery, something much larger consultancy firms would not be able to accommodate. We are close to completing the fifth and final deployment of Coupa to a division which has many more nuances within its billing processes, but due to time constraints put onto the project team from outside of the project teams’ control, Barkers have again adapted their delivery to match the needs of their customer whilst ensuring what they deliver is still up to the highest standards. It has been a pleasure and a breath of fresh air to deal with a smaller consultancy firm whose employees ensure they get to understand their customers needs and offer solutions without charging extra for the privilege of providing their knowledge and assistance.

Paul Thwaites

Senior Project Manager, Vanquis Banking Group

The Barkers appointment has been a tremendous success; the teams' technical ability, flexibility, guidance and pragmatism has been first class. It is a true example of client and partner collaboration.

Steven Schools

Head of Procurement and Supplier Management, Vanquis Banking Group

Barkers approach to our challenge delivery impressed me. Jersey Electricity faces a lot of different challenges, and therefore it is tough to find the right people – especially people that would fit our requirements. Being a small and strongly diversified business in a geographically isolated environment, we needed a versatile specialist to come in and advise on multiple different topics. Barkers delivered just that. The consultant working with us was not only strong in the primary field of expertise (Procurement) but could as firmly ask challenging questions to technical people. Working in this way allowed Barkers to expand the primary scope and Jersey Electricity to receive valuable support.

Mark Preece

Operations Director, Jersey Electricity

I have worked with Barkers in the past and so was aware of both their strong procurement and commercial excellence as well as their relevant market sector knowledge. Once the team were briefed on the outcomes we required and the timeframe to deliver, we worked together on the feasibility of our plan to build something achievable. This allowed us to manage internal expectations and build trust in the plan. With any procurement project there are changes and unforeseen challenges that can impact timelines and this project was no exception. Barkers supported us through the changes, challenged them where appropriate, and amended the work where changes were necessary. Barkers always put the project and the outcomes first showing a high degree of integrity. The outcome Barkers delivered was timely, robust and showed a clear benefit, I would not hesitate in using Barkers again.

David Anderson

Head of Commercial, OVO Energy

The Barkers Led Procurement transformation at Argent had an immediate positive impact. The Barkers team positively engaged with the business and helped deliver procurement improvements to the indirect categories of spend. These changes enabled a step changed for how procurement was viewed across the business.

Nicola Dean

CFO, Argent Energy

An inspiring partnership, recognising and developing creative solutions to local social issues in the most effective way. Barkers and Bolton Family are a compelling example of people coming together from right across the community, with passion, authenticity and trust.

Lisa Charles

Director Of Business Services, Bolton at Home

We engaged Barkers to help us conduct an end to end review of Procurement. This included a tailored approach to our business objectives and our Procurement capability with a full set of recommendations that we have implemented over the past 12 months. The end result has been a successful programme of change, that has delivered a solid set of foundations to take our business and the function forward. Our lead partner on the ground was fantastic, and really stepped up to the challenges we faced and became an integral enabler of change.

Karen Lounds

Business Services Director, Tata Chemicals

We selected Barkers primarily for the depth of their procurement experience but also because their ethical approach and commitment to the creation of social value differentiates them from other consultancies. The Barkers team worked alongside our staff to enhance the team and accelerate our delivery of budget impacting savings and the creation of localised social value.

David Levy

Head of Strategic Procurement, Seven Force Strategic Collaboration