It’s safe to say that the year 2020 will forever be a year to remember. No other event within the 21st century has put humanity more to test than the Covid-19 pandemic yet. Within months society and economy found themselves in situations of great uncertainty.

As with most systemic events, the Covid-19 pandemic not only caused a severe drop in revenues for most companies, it also led to a major shift in spend awareness. Unprecedented disruption in the majority of industries has called organizations to reprioritize their functions, optimize spending, or postpone tasks that no longer serve their current circumstances.

As a business leader or entrepreneur, you too may have done everything in your power to cut your losses. Reducing personnel, downshifting unnecessary administrative costs, or outsourcing your workforce are only a few examples of prominent measures that have widely been taken.

While these steps are necessary for the survival of the business, there are other considerable challenges factoring into the process of successfully running all these operations at optimal costs. In this blogpost we’d like to point out the Top 3 challenges we at Mercanis have seen our partners and clients dealing with along the last months:

More time spent finding the right service suppliers for projects

New problems require new solutions! For companies to recalibrate projects and operations following the sanitary crisis, external workforce has proven itself very effective. The onboarding of ad-hoc service providers not only allowed saving costs but also led to reprioritization of core business activities. On the contrary we at Mercanis have observed that companies now spend significantly more time tracking and holding their external workforce accountable.

Increased difficulties in managing service spend

As mentioned, emphasis not only lies on the drop of revenues. Consciousness on overall spend and with it service spend has greatly increased. Wisely managing active engagements has always been a challenge for CFOs. Covid-19 has turned it into an utmost priority. Additionally, many executives were forced to reconsider budget capacity and distribution. Attributing the right amount at the right time for the right service supplier unfortunately hasn’t become easier through Covid-19.

Subsequent issues with communication, project development and transparency across processes, and payroll.

At Mercanis we made the experience that increased externalization of services needs to go hand in hand with greater transparency to ensure optimal project outcomes. The gapless alignment of suppliers and service providers is pivotal to the health of a business.

Scrambled communication, time zone differences, postponed project deadlines as well as unreliable service provider may ultimately distress your business and drain valuable time. Managing service providers in a ​smart, efficient and compliant​ manner only becomes more decisive in critical economic circumstances.

So how should companies adapt?

At Mercanis we have developed multiple features to respond to the new challenges of service procurement following the Covid-19 pandemic. We are convinced that businesses can find resilience in this crisis by integrating AI powered, cutting-edge professional service procurement solutions.

Not only has the AI powered service procurement software from Mercanis proven itself handy for businesses trying to navigate the transition to remote operations and increasingly externalized workforce. Mercanis also helps buyers optimize the distribution of service procurement budgets, as well as reduce expenditure by providing detailed benchmarks.

Mercanis helps you streamline this experience by significantly reducing time and overall procurement costs. Our aggregate solution provides the overview you need in competitive markets to prevent resource drain and help you make even more efficient decisions, with different tools to track, ​analyze and communicate with suppliers within a single platform. Covering every step from source to settle, Mercanis is also your go-to software when it comes to ​real-time milestone tracking​ and milestone invoice management.

We’re happy to show you the inner workings of solution with a trial of our product! Let’s connect and see how Mercanis can best help you and your organization.

Book a meeting with us to learn more!