July 07, 2026
AI doesn’t fix fragmented Direct Materials digitalization. It exposes it. You need Zumen to solve the full problem.
For many manufacturing companies, the conversation around digitalization has suddenly jumped to AI. Every boardroom wants to know how AI can improve productivity, reduce costs, improve supplier decisions, predict risks, and automate work. That is ...
Read more..July 07, 2026
The TCO blind spot no one talks about
✔️ PLM → Needed to build the product ✔️ ERP → Needed to run the business ✔️ CRM → Needed to drive revenue All became systems of record. But the function that controls 50–70% of ...
Read more..July 06, 2026
How long can Direct Materials teams hold the line with spreadsheets?
For years, Direct Materials professionals have defended complex procurement, costing, supplier collaboration, quality, and change management with Excel. They survived generic SaaS tools.They survived vendor portals.They survived disconnected workflows. But now the technology onslaught is ...
Read more..July 05, 2026
Why Direct Materials Teams Struggle to Accept Software Change Costs In direct materials, cost change is a familiar conversation. A drawing changes.A new feature is added.A tool needs modification.A supplier needs to validate the part ...
Read more..July 05, 2026
Why Direct Materials Digitalization Gets Delayed Even When the Need Is Obvious Most manufacturing leaders know that Direct Materials is too important to be managed through spreadsheets, emails, shared folders, supplier follow-ups, and tribal knowledge. ...
Read more..June 19, 2026
The Orchestration Layer Eventually Becomes the Application Layer
There is a growing debate in enterprise procurement technology today: Should companies replace fragmented procurement tools with a single Source-to-Pay suite? Or should they retain the existing toolset and place an orchestration layer on top? ...
Read more..July 28, 2023
What Does It Mean To Be A Buyer
What are the core responsibilities? Buyers, purchasing agents, procurement specialists, purchase executives, irrespective of how they are referred to in an organization, are primarily responsible for purchasing materials, supplies or equipment for a business. Their ...
Read more..July 13, 2023
10 Reasons Why a Procurement Platform’s TCO is Way Lesser than a Custom Solution
A majority of the manufacturing companies still use ERP for Sourcing & Procurement. Managing Procurement in ERP is primarily about order management. All of the pre-purchase order or sourcing activities, in other words, all of ...
Read more..April 27, 2023
Why Manufacturing Companies Need a Supplier Relationship Management Software?
Supplier Relationship Management is a phrase that has been seeing a lot of traction of late. Companies have realized the criticality of suppliers being a stakeholder in their success and have been taking several actions ...
Read more..January 17, 2023
5 Tips to help overcome Procurement Challenges in 2023
Overcoming Direct Material Procurement Challenges in 2023 The arrival of the COVID-19 virus and the subsequent pandemic has made an impact in the way the world functions. There is a new way of working, operating ...
Read more..January 09, 2023
Chennai Marathon 2023: A Runtastic Day!
"When you run a marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against time" - Haile Gebrselassieand It takes guts and gumption to cross the finish line of a marathon. ...
Read more..January 06, 2023
Zumen’s 2022 Year in Review
A blast from our past. In 2022, in an effort to empower procurement with comprehensive direct material Source-to-Pay software, a lot has transpired at Zumen. And along the way, we had loads of fun. ...
Read more..December 30, 2022
A New Hope
We thrive on hope. Hope gets us out of the bed, Hope energizes us, Hope channelizes our focus, and helps us overcome our fears. Humankind has gone through a lot this past year. There ...
Read more..December 14, 2022
Zumen | India EV Confex & Awards 2022
The Earth’s climate has been changing since its inception 4.5 billion years ago. With causes attributable to natural influences (changes in the Earth’s orbit, volcanic eruptions, and shifts in Earth’s crust) and human activities (burning ...
Read more..November 10, 2022
Zumen @ Asia Pacific Procurement Congress 2022 (APPC 2022)
At Zumen, we have consistently made efforts to have our presence felt and let the world know about our offering. And in a significant step towards that we presented Zumen, the company and the product ...
Read more..September 29, 2022
Importance of Supplier Selection Criteria in Establishing Strategic Sourcing
According to the Aberdeen report on strategic sourcing, 68% of the survey respondents believe that strategic sourcing plays a huge role in their organization. 53% of the survey respondents believe that a top strategic ...
Read more..September 29, 2022
Supply Chain Disruptions: Factsheet of the Global Impact
Covid-19 was the first and most significant domino that caused a catastrophic ripple effect along the supply chain. Since then, Geo-political issues, customer demands, trade wars, and many other disruptors have caused upheavals in the ...
Read more..August 25, 2022
Scope 3 Emissions: Risks, Opportunities, and Role of Procurement
Earlier, sustainability was just a topic in boardroom meetings, but now, it is not so. It is becoming a pressing issue in organizations. And enterprises worldwide are calling for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions like ...
Read more..August 17, 2022
Sustainable Procurement: What it is? And what are the Benefits?
The past couple of years have been hectic, and we have been through so much. Covid and other events have impacted us in ways unimaginable. Despite the fact that the pandemic is not over, we ...
Read more..August 04, 2022
Commodity Management in Procurement
Product manufacturing companies handle several components (direct or indirect materials) and services. And direct materials constitute 65-80% of the total spending. Also, the variety of commodity inputs for industrial goods has increased concomitant with technology ...
Read more..August 01, 2022
Procurement Technology: The 7 Advantages of using Procurement Software
Procurement Technology: Every industry is talking about using technology to improve their supply chain processes This is because technology can significantly impact an organization's bottom-line by improving visibility and cost-efficiency. Technology also helps increase the ...
Read more..July 14, 2022
e-Procurement Software Workbook: The Ultimate Guide to choosing the right Software for Direct Material Sourcing & Procurement
Direct Material Procurement digitalization has been a point of discussion in product manufacturing companies for some time now. Automating direct procurement and optimizing the source-to-contract process can save businesses time and money. But it is ...
Read more..July 08, 2022
Wimbledon - A Procurement Excellence
Champagnes, strawberries, and 50K tennis balls behind a spectacular event Wimbledon – an event that personifies everything British is back to its original form after a 3-year sabbatical. Every product and aspect of Wimbledon is ...
Read more..June 14, 2022
10 reasons to avoid ERP Customization for Procurement
The last decade has seen increased use of technology by the global population for personal use and pandemic-driven technology adoption by companies. To add to that, competition continues to be fierce among product manufacturing companies. ...
Read more..June 10, 2022
Direct Material Procurement Life Cycle Guide - Part 2
Welcome to part 2 of the 2-part series blog on Direct Material Procurement LifeCycle. In case you missed part 1, it is available here. The objective of this handbook is to help the audience understand ...
Read more..June 09, 2022
Why an ERP system is not a sourcing platform
Almost all established companies have a well-functioning ERP system. ERPs were designed to help accounting teams monitor transactions across the enterprises and to help in financial reporting and it falls short of addressing the features ...
Read more..June 02, 2022
Manufacturing Industry: 3 Major IT Pillars for Successful Product Manufacturing Organization
An early-stage startup probably has 100 SaaS tools they have signed up for and actively uses at least 50 of those. While the technology companies move fast in adopting IT tools, the manufacturing companies worldwide ...
Read more..May 25, 2022
Direct Material Procurement Life Cycle Guide - Part 1
The objective of this guide is to explain the Direct Material Procurement Lifecycle — details, exceptions, and complexities — in the context of product manufacturing industries. This would include companies in such industry sectors but ...
Read more..January 10, 2022
Supplier Relationships: 5 Ways to improve
Supplier Relationships: A successful product manufacturing company requires a strong supply base, given about 70% of the value of the product is derived from the Direct Materials sourced from their suppliers. The relationship that a ...
Read more..December 09, 2021
Global Supply Chain Shortages: The never ending loop of Supply Chain disruptions and the way forward
Supply Chain Disruption The sudden rise in demand has led to chaos for manufacturers and distributors of goods who cannot supply as much as they did at pre-pandemic levels. To add to the woes, the ...
Read more..November 10, 2021
Source to Pay software: The What? The Why? And the top 5 aspects to look out for
Companies in the manufacturing industry is growing at a good pace, and companies have a lot riding on them since the industry is moving towards saying “Business as usual.” The term, though quite old, means ...
Read more..November 05, 2021
Direct Material Sourcing - How Technology Can Ease its Complexity
It's Friday evening and you find that the parts arriving from the supplier can’t make it inside the gate because of some discrepancies in the purchase order. Let's say you are getting the new equipment ...
Read more..October 20, 2021
Source-to-Pay vs. Procure-to-Pay: Which is the better procurement process?
So, you are planning to Digitalize your procurement process. The first step to this is deciding whether to invest in a Source-to-Pay or a Procure-to-Pay platform. To make a decision you need to understand the functions ...
Read more..October 11, 2021
Procurement Software: Is it in your IT budget?
This time of year, many companies are figuring out how to allocate resources in the next budget cycle. They will revisit old spend allocations, consider new or lingering business problems, and earmark funds for special ...
Read more..October 10, 2021
8 Competing Priorities that jeopardize margin improvement initiatives from procurement
The story goes like this: the CFO is asking for a percentage point cost improvement in the Gross Margin from the Procurement Team in the next Fiscal. This is the most attractive to the ...
Read more..October 05, 2021
Sourcing Solutions help in achieving better product costs. How?
Sourcing Startegy: When sourcing for several hundred/ thousands of parts, the process of negotiating becomes unmanageable with the increasing quantum of emails and phone calls. The information gathered from emails and phone conversations has to ...
Read more..October 05, 2021
Digitalization Procurement: The Transformation through the ages
Procurement has transitioned from a purely transactional process to a strategic function crucial to business success in the last 30 years. This transformation has also been accompanied by technology for the most part. From the ...
Read more..October 05, 2021
Direct Sourcing is much more than purchasing: It is an extension of Product Life Cycle
You design, manufacture, and sell a product… be it an Automobile, Aircraft, Refrigerator (or any of the high-tech gadgets that go in them), a Candy bar, or your off-the-shelf Pain-Killer medication. Unless you are one ...
Read more..October 04, 2021
Procurement in Business: Leverage Technology to meet your 2022 Goals
We are heading towards Q1 of 2022 and since Covid swept the world, there have been unprecedented interruptions to organizations across the globe. With the pandemic affecting every country and the subsequent lockdowns across regions ...
Read more..September 30, 2021
Procurement Process: How Zumen’s Source-to-Pay Solutions enhance it
Procurement management in Product Manufacturing Companies: In current world scenario procurement teams works on multiple everyday tools and platforms to keep the production line running. To incorporate all these tools, organizations add many layers of ...
Read more..September 29, 2021
Procurement System: Ensuring Direct Material Efficiency Through End-to-End Procurement Technology
In manufacturing companies, efficiency is typically derived from well-managed process and material flows. Operational evidence of materials management efficiency can be observed in the percentage of on-time-in-full (OTIF) deliveries from suppliers, high inventory turns, percentage ...
Read more..September 28, 2021
Manufacturing Company: What should they be prioritizing?
Manufacturing business : In the wake of the pandemic, many product manufacturing companies were skeptical to move away from their existing processes hoping that businesses would soon be back to normalcy. 2021 follows the previous ...
Read more..September 28, 2021
Supplier Management : A modern & automated approach
Supplier Management: In traditional Supplier Management, the focus was only on cost reduction. The buyer-supplier relationship did not extend beyond that. Today, it is recognized that Suppliers play an important role in the long-term success ...
Read more..September 28, 2021
S2P Software : How to gain 100% visibility in your sourcing process
Source-to-Pay popularly known as S2P, is the end-to-end process and steps that businesses follow to source, procure, and pay for goods and/or services. Beyond these phases of procurement, S2P also includes strategic procurement and supplier ...
Read more..September 26, 2021
SCRM : Mitigating Supply Chain Risks with a Resilient Procurement Platform
Supply chain risks: Unforeseen delivery bottlenecks put companies under acute pressure to act. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, blocking of the Suez Canal, or fire at one of Renesas’ factories (Supplier for automotive controller ...
Read more..September 01, 2021
Spend Management: Effectively Managing Direct and Indirect Spends
Spend Management: The primary goal for Procurement leaders is to optimize the purchases as more than 70% of their company’s revenue is spent on purchasing goods and services - both Direct and Indirect. While direct ...
Read more..August 26, 2021
Supplier Data Management – The first step towards building Supply Chain Resilience
With the advent of the pandemic, a lot has been spoken about Supply Chain Visibility and the role of data in Supply Chain Visibility. Before the pandemic, there was a consensus that organizations had to ...
Read more..