Automation Control Market Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Engineering Components and its sub-segments such as Automation Control are at an interesting intersection. Technology is improving productivity and creating fresh demand. Convergence of data science, automation tools, 3D printing, robotics, AI and big data has opened up multiple possibilities to better serve customers at a lower operational cost.

Procurement costs for Automation Control are highly impacted by an increase in the costs associated with the value chain of Automation Control, such as logistics, labor cost and energy. Additionally, outdated assets are also increasing the cost for suppliers.

Regulatory guidance on data protection and increasing concern over cybersecurity have increased the costs for suppliers as they incur additional spend on compliance and security. These additional costs have a potential to drive marginal increase in prices across the key geographies.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Automation Control is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Automation Control procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Automation Control procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers should engage with suppliers that have adopted a global delivery model as it reduces buyers' risk. In this model, any disaster/emergency at any operating facility of supplier will result in the work being transferred to a different facility, thereby ensuring continuity of the project and reduced risk for buyers. This model also provides buyers access to skilled labor from across the globe, thereby improving the quality of engineering products provided by the supplier.

Buyers should invest in benchmarking studies that help category managers to improve their knowledge on market pricing or billing rates of service providers. This helps them to not only save costs but also increase their negotiation power.

Buyers should assess the level of adoption of the latest technologies by suppliers to assess cost-saving opportunities and quality that can be provided by the latter. For instance, the adoption of technologies such as cloud computing will enable suppliers to reduce their internal computing hardware requirements for operations such as CAD and CAM. This can, in turn, enable them to reduce their operating costs, thereby suppliers can offer products at lower rates to buyers.

Automation Control procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Automation Control procurement. Some examples include: