The procurement technology landscape is getting more exciting–and more confusing. In this series of guides, we take you through common areas of procurement being tackled by new solution providers.
Read on to learn about intake management: a basic definition, what makes it painful, common use cases, and how procurement orchestration applies.
What Is Intake Management
Intake management is how procurement teams receive, route, and respond to business requests from employees.
Employees come to procurement for a variety of reasons. They may need to source a new supplier, get a purchase request approved, set up an NDA for a contractor, or renew a software license, for a few examples. Each type of request–from the very simple to the very complex–needs to go through three sets of processes.
Receiving
In this step, employees might send their request to procurement through channels such as email, Slack, Google forms, or a centralized portal. Procurement ensures the request has the right details, sometimes going back to the requester for more information or automatically enriching the request with required data.
Routing
When the request has enough of the right details, Procurement needs to determine the priority and routing protocol for that type of request. For example, that could mean requiring a software purchase to go through finance, legal, and IT review.
Response
The final goal is to respond to and resolve the employee’s needs. This can include guiding employees through the process of finding the right buying channel, communicating status, and collaborating with other stakeholders involved.
While intake management is essentially a type of process, that’s not the whole story. Intake management is also the quality and efficiency of how that process is done–the entire experience that is delivered to the employees.
The Current State of Intake Management for Procurement
Many organizations still grapple with outdated, inefficient intake processes that hinder procurement performance. Common challenges with the status quo include:
Manual, time-consuming request submission methods
Reliance on email or forms leads to delays and data entry errors.
Lack of standardization in request formats
Inconsistent information makes it difficult to process requests efficiently.
Difficulty in tracking and prioritizing requests
Without a centralized system, important requests may fall through the cracks.
Lack of adoption by frustrated employees
There’s no value-add for them.
Symptoms of Inefficient Intake Management
Procurement Team
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Entire Organization
Benefits of Intake Management for Procurement
Decreased cycle time
Automation and standardization reduce manual work and accelerate processing times, freeing up time for strategic activities.
Increased user adoption
By prioritizing an intuitive, foolproof user experience, procurement can meet user needs faster, increase touchless transactions, and ensure compliant buying.
Enhanced visibility and control over procurement requests
A centralized, orchestrated intake management process provides real-time insights into request status and trends. Standardization of request processes improves data quality and consistency.
Better alignment with organizational goals and strategies
Structured intake processes ensure that purchases support broader business objectives.
Tips for Implementing an Intake Management Solution for Procurement
Do’s
Don’ts
Intake Management Use Cases
To illustrate the impact of effective intake management, consider these example scenarios:
High-volume purchase requests
Streamlined intake processes—coupled with guided, catalog-based buying channels—can automate approvals for low-value, high-frequency items, reducing processing time and allowing procurement teams to focus on more strategic purchases.
Complex, multi-stakeholder projects
Intake management systems can coordinate inputs from various departments, manage documentation, and orchestrate approvals for large-scale procurement projects, ensuring all requirements are met before proceeding to sourcing.
Compliance and risk management
Advanced intake systems can automatically flag potential risks, trigger appropriate reviews, and ensure adherence to procurement policies and regulations, reducing compliance-related issues by up to 80%.
Procurement Orchestration for Intake Management
Procurement orchestration solutions coordinate teams, systems, and processes across any procurement use case. Intake management is one of the most compelling use cases for procurement orchestration.
Orchestration technology can have a profound impact on how efficiently and effectively procurement receives, routes, and responds to employee requests–as well on the overall quality of the intake experience for end users.
Guided intake experience
Provide a seamless, one-stop experience for end users for all requests with natural language intake and GenAI buying category detection and channel guidance.
Intuitive intake workflows
Make complex routing and approval workflows seem simple to the end user with orchestration features like defaulted organizational data, progressive workflows, AI-powered supplier recommendations, and unified collaboration across multiple channels.
Intake communication and compliance
Provide users with self-serve visibility into their requests at every step. Orchestration solutions can follow an employee’s request across systems and processes. These solutions maintain transparency and compliance across internal reviews and approvals, sourcing, contracting, and PO creation.
That’s a Wrap
As we've explored, effective intake management is not just a nice-to-have—it's a critical component of modern, high-performing procurement organizations. By streamlining and automating the intake process, procurement teams can shift their focus from administrative tasks to strategic initiatives that drive real value for their organizations.
The future of procurement lies in embracing innovation and digital transformation. We encourage you to assess your current intake processes and consider how implementing or improving your intake management system could transform your procurement function.
Take the first step towards procurement excellence
By investing in effective intake management today, you're setting the stage for a more efficient, strategic, and value-driven procurement function tomorrow.
