Every day, procurement teams spend hours forwarding purchase orders, chasing confirmations, updating ERP systems manually and searching through long email threads.
The problem isn’t creating purchase orders. Modern ERP systems do that very well. The real challenge begins after the purchase order has been sent.
A supplier asks a question. A delivery date changes. One order line needs to be updated. Someone forwards another email. Another colleague joins the conversation. Before long, the same purchase order exists in an ERP system, several email conversations and perhaps even an Excel spreadsheet.
The problem isn’t creating purchase orders. The problem is collaborating around them.
“The biggest improvement isn’t faster purchase orders. It’s the fact that the endless email chains simply disappear.” – Jarl Matti Anttila, CEO at Jakamo
For many manufacturers, email has quietly become the operating system for procurement collaboration. Purchase orders are created in the ERP, but confirmations, delivery changes, questions and exceptions are still handled manually. As supplier networks grow, this creates more work, less visibility and an increasing risk of costly mistakes.
Most organizations don’t notice the problem because it has gradually become “the way we’ve always worked.”
Purchase Orders Don’t Fail. Communication Does.
Purchase orders are rarely the problem. Most modern ERP systems generate purchase orders efficiently, accurately and at scale. The challenge begins the moment a purchase order leaves the ERP.
A supplier needs to confirm the delivery date. One item is temporarily unavailable. Quantities need to be adjusted. Someone from procurement forwards an email to production. Another person replies with updated information. Finance is copied into the conversation. Before long, a single purchase order has generated multiple email threads, spreadsheets and manual ERP updates.
The purchase order itself hasn’t failed. The communication around it has.
This is where procurement teams lose time, visibility and control. Instead of collaborating around one shared source of truth, critical information becomes scattered across inboxes, spreadsheets and disconnected systems. As supplier networks grow, this complexity increases exponentially.
“Many procurement teams believe they have a purchase order process. In reality, they have an email process built around purchase orders”, says Jarl Matti Anttila
The objective isn’t to eliminate email completely. Suppliers will always communicate. The objective is to eliminate the endless email chains that have become the default way of managing purchase orders.
The Hidden Cost of Email-Based Purchase Order Management
Procurement professionals rarely measure the number of emails required to process a purchase order. Instead, they focus on lead times, supplier performance or purchase price variance. Yet behind almost every delayed confirmation, missed delivery date or manual ERP update is a communication process that has evolved organically over the years.
One email asks for a delivery confirmation. Another explains a quantity change. A third contains an updated delivery date. A fourth forwards the conversation to someone else.
Individually, these interactions seem insignificant. Collectively, they create a process that is difficult to monitor, impossible to analyse and increasingly expensive to manage.
The real cost is rarely the email itself. The real cost is the manual work that follows every email. Every confirmation has to be checked. Every change has to be entered into the ERP. Every exception has to be communicated to the right people. Every delay requires another round of emails. The larger the supplier network becomes, the more this hidden workload grows.
At some point, procurement teams stop managing purchase orders. They start managing communication.
Purchase Order Collaboration Changes the Process – Technology Makes It Possible
Most organizations believe they need a better procurement system. In reality, what they often need is a better way for buyers and suppliers to work together.
Purchase Order Collaboration doesn’t replace procurement or ERP systems. It transforms the communication that surrounds every purchase order, replacing fragmented email chains, spreadsheets and manual updates with one shared, transparent workflow.
The technology itself isn’t the objective. Better collaboration is. Technology simply makes that collaboration possible.
Why Supplier Adoption Matters More Than Technology
Software alone does not create value. The real value comes when suppliers actively adopt and use the new way of working.
This is where Jakamo has its biggest competitive advantage: the highest supplier engagement and coverage in the market. Without high supplier engagement, customers cannot expect to get the full benefits from supplier collaboration. High engagement is what makes the change successful and ensures that the benefits start to generate immediately.
Our proven approach covers the whole journey:
- Supplier onboarding – getting suppliers connected quickly and easily
- Supplier activation – making sure suppliers actually start using Jakamo
- Communication – keeping suppliers engaged and informed
- Proven adoption process – a structured way to drive and maintain adoption
- Higher supplier performance – better collaboration leads to better supplier performance
It is not enough to provide the software. You need to get suppliers with you. This is what makes supplier collaboration work in practice.
The Business Benefits of Purchase Order Collaboration
Purchase Order Collaboration is not about adding another tool for managing purchase orders. It is about making the process between buyers and suppliers faster, more transparent and more reliable.
When suppliers and buyers work together in the same digital process, information moves faster, manual work is reduced and potential issues can be identified earlier. This creates immediate operational benefits and gives procurement better visibility into supplier performance.
- Faster confirmations – suppliers respond faster and buyers get reliable information earlier
- Less manual work – fewer emails, spreadsheets and manual follow-ups
- Better supplier relationships – clearer communication and a more transparent way of working
- Procurement transparency – a clear view of orders, confirmations and open issues
- Executive visibility – management gets a better overview of supplier collaboration and performance
- Better supplier performance management – reliable data helps procurement identify issues, follow performance and take action
- Lower cost of poor quality – earlier visibility of issues helps prevent problems from escalating
- Higher flexibility – faster and more transparent communication makes it easier to react to changes
- Transparent sustainability tracking – better visibility into supplier sustainability data and progress
- Better delivery reliability – improved collaboration and earlier information help suppliers deliver as agreed
Real-World Results: What Successful Manufacturers Achieve
A purchase order collaboration initiative creates value only when suppliers actually adopt the new way of working. A technically successful implementation is not enough if purchase order confirmations and delivery changes continue to be managed through email.
Fastems, a global provider of factory automation solutions, offers a practical example of rapid supplier adoption. The company integrated its ERP system with a digital purchase order collaboration platform using standard APIs. Just two weeks after launch, 86% of its purchase order volume was already being transferred through the platform.
This is significant because it demonstrates the difference between implementation and adoption.
Implementation means that the technology has been configured, integrated, and made available. Adoption means that buyers and suppliers use it consistently in their daily work—and that a meaningful share of the actual purchase order volume moves through the new process.
Fastems achieved more than high transaction coverage. Suppliers’ on-time order confirmations improved by 20 percentage points, email traffic decreased significantly, and purchasers were able to reduce repetitive administrative work. The company also reported improved employee satisfaction and a 20% reduction in the cost of poor quality.
Why Supplier Onboarding Determines the Results
Rapid adoption does not happen automatically. Suppliers need to understand what is changing, why the new process benefits them, and how they are expected to work after the launch.
Effective supplier onboarding typically includes:
- clear communication before the transition
- simple instructions based on the supplier’s role
- practical training and accessible support
- a phased but actively managed rollout
- continuous monitoring of participation and purchase order coverage
- rapid intervention when suppliers continue using email
The process must also be easy for suppliers. Requiring every supplier to purchase software, build a complex integration, or adapt to a heavy customer-specific portal can slow adoption considerably. Suppliers have different systems, resources, and levels of digital maturity, so the collaboration model must accommodate different ways of connecting.
The Fastems result shows why manufacturers should measure adoption through actual transaction volume—not merely by counting registered suppliers or completed technical connections.
When 80–86% of purchase order volume moves into the collaborative process shortly after launch, the manufacturer quickly gains a more complete operational view. Exceptions become visible earlier, order confirmations become more reliable, and purchasers can begin moving from manual follow-up to proactive supplier management.
The lesson is straightforward: technology enables purchase order collaboration, but onboarding turns it into operational performance.
Read the complete Fastems purchase order collaboration case study.
Why Purchase Order Collaboration Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage
Purchase order collaboration is no longer only an operational improvement. It is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage for manufacturing companies.
For decades, manufacturers have managed purchase orders through a combination of ERP systems, emails, spreadsheets, phone calls, and personal relationships. This approach was often sufficient when supplier networks were smaller, supply chains were more predictable, and changes occurred less frequently.
That environment is disappearing.
Manufacturers now operate across larger supplier ecosystems, face more frequent disruptions, and must respond to changing customer requirements much faster. At the same time, expectations for transparency, traceability, and data quality continue to increase.
As a result, companies are moving away from email-based purchasing processes towards shared and digitally connected ways of managing purchase orders.
Supplier Networks Are Becoming More Complex
Manufacturing companies increasingly depend on a broad network of suppliers, subcontractors, logistics partners, and service providers.
A single product may require components and materials from dozens or even hundreds of suppliers operating in different countries, time zones, and information systems. Each supplier may also have its own production constraints, lead times, communication practices, and level of digital maturity.
As supplier networks grow, the number of purchase orders, confirmations, delivery updates, and exceptions grows with them.
Email does not scale well in this environment. Information becomes fragmented across individual inboxes, attachments, spreadsheets, and message threads. When several people participate in the same order process, it becomes difficult to determine which information is current and who is responsible for the next action.
Purchase order collaboration creates a shared operational view between the buyer and the supplier. Both parties can work with the same order information, status, changes, and delivery commitments instead of maintaining separate versions of reality.
Supply Chain Disruptions Require Faster Response
Supply chain disruptions are no longer exceptional events. Material shortages, transportation delays, geopolitical uncertainty, capacity constraints, and sudden changes in customer demand have become part of normal supply chain management.
The decisive factor is therefore not whether a disruption occurs, but how quickly the company can identify and respond to it.
In an email-based process, a delivery problem may remain hidden inside a supplier’s inbox until someone asks for an update. By the time the delay becomes visible to purchasing, production planning, or customer service, the available response options may already be limited.
A collaborative process makes deviations visible earlier. Suppliers can communicate changes to quantities, delivery dates, and availability directly in connection with the purchase order. This gives the buying organization more time to adjust production plans, find alternative sources, or communicate with customers.
The competitive advantage comes from reaction speed. Companies that detect and manage exceptions earlier can protect production continuity and customer delivery performance more effectively.
Transparency Requirements Are Increasing
Manufacturers are under growing pressure to understand what happens throughout their supply chains.
Customers expect reliable information about deliveries and product availability. Management needs a clearer picture of supply chain risks and supplier performance. Regulators and stakeholders increasingly demand traceability related to materials, product origin, sustainability, and responsible sourcing.
These requirements cannot be met reliably if critical purchase order information is scattered across emails and manually maintained spreadsheets.
Digital purchase order collaboration creates structured, time-stamped information about confirmations, changes, delivery commitments, and communication. This makes it easier to understand what was agreed, when the information changed, and how individual suppliers perform over time.
Transparency also improves internal coordination. Purchasing, production, logistics, quality, and customer service can make decisions based on the same information rather than requesting updates from one another.
AI Depends on Current and Reliable Supply Chain Data
Artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities for procurement and supply chain management. Companies are beginning to use AI to identify risks, predict delays, recommend actions, and improve demand and supply planning.
However, AI can only work effectively when the underlying data is current and reliable.
Information stored in email conversations, PDF attachments, personal notes, and disconnected spreadsheets is difficult to analyse systematically. Before companies can benefit fully from AI, they need to digitalise the operational interactions that generate supply chain data.
Purchase order collaboration provides an important foundation for this development. When supplier confirmations, delivery changes, exceptions, and responses are captured in a structured format, companies can begin to recognise patterns across their supplier network.
Over time, this data can help answer questions such as:
- Which suppliers frequently change confirmed delivery dates?
- Which orders are most likely to be delayed?
- Where are capacity constraints beginning to emerge?
- Which exceptions require immediate human attention?
- How could a disruption affect production or customer deliveries?
AI does not replace collaboration between buyers and suppliers. It makes that collaboration more informed, predictive, and scalable.
Digital Procurement Is Moving Beyond Internal Efficiency
The first wave of procurement digitalisation focused largely on internal processes. Companies implemented ERP, e-procurement, sourcing, and spend management systems to improve control and efficiency inside the buying organisation.
The next stage is connecting internal procurement processes with external supplier operations.
A purchase order may be created automatically inside an ERP system, but the process becomes manual again if the supplier receives it by email, confirms it in a separate document, and communicates every subsequent change through messages and phone calls.
This creates a digital gap between the buyer and the supplier.
Purchase order collaboration closes that gap by extending the digital process across organisational boundaries. It connects the purchase order created by the buyer with the supplier’s confirmation, delivery commitment, and ongoing updates.
The result is not simply less administrative work. It is a more responsive supply network in which information can move faster than disruptions.
From Administrative Process to Strategic Capability
Purchase order management has traditionally been treated as a routine administrative activity. In reality, it directly affects production continuity, working capital, inventory levels, supplier relationships, and customer delivery performance.
When purchase order collaboration works well, manufacturers can:
- identify supply risks earlier
- reduce uncertainty in production planning
- respond faster to delivery changes
- improve supplier accountability
- reduce manual follow-up
- create more reliable supply chain data
- provide customers with more accurate delivery information
These capabilities are increasingly difficult to achieve through email and spreadsheets alone.
The transition towards digital purchase order collaboration is therefore not only about replacing one communication channel with another. It reflects a broader shift in manufacturing: from reactive order administration towards connected, data-driven supply chain management.
Companies that make this transition can coordinate their supplier networks faster, manage uncertainty more effectively, and build a stronger foundation for automation and AI. In an increasingly volatile manufacturing environment, that operational responsiveness is becoming a genuine competitive advantage.
Case Example: From Manual Follow-Up to Strategic Supplier Collaboration
Stera Technologies provides a practical example of how Purchase Order Collaboration can transform the daily work of procurement. As an international contract manufacturer operating seven factories in Finland and Estonia, Stera sends around 90,000 purchase order lines to suppliers every year. Before Jakamo, order confirmations were entered manually into the ERP, while supplier communication was mainly handled through email. This created a significant amount of manual work and limited the time available for value-adding supplier collaboration.
Stera integrated its ERP with Jakamo and moved its purchase order and confirmation process into a shared collaboration environment. Instead of managing confirmations and follow-ups manually, purchasers gained better visibility and suppliers had a simpler way to respond and communicate.
The results were significant: nearly 100% of order confirmations from suppliers using Jakamo became automated, while 98% of invited suppliers adopted the new way of working. Email traffic decreased dramatically, and purchasers were able to focus more on change handling, delivery optimisation and supplier development.
The case demonstrates that the value of Purchase Order Collaboration is not only in automating a process. When suppliers actively adopt the new way of working, automation creates immediate operational benefits and frees procurement to focus on higher-value work.
Read the complete Stera Technologies supplier collaboration case study.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Purchase Order Collaboration? Purchase Order Collaboration is a way for buyers and suppliers to manage the purchase order process together. Instead of relying on emails, spreadsheets and manual follow-ups, both parties have a shared view of purchase orders, confirmations, changes and delivery information. The goal is to make the process faster, more transparent and more reliable for both buyers and suppliers.
- How is it different from Purchase Order Software? Purchase Order Software mainly focuses on managing purchase orders within the buying organization. Purchase Order Collaboration goes one step further by connecting buyers and suppliers to the same process. The value does not come only from digitizing the buyer’s process, but from getting suppliers actively involved and creating better collaboration between both sides.
- Can it integrate with ERP systems? Yes. Purchase Order Collaboration can integrate with existing ERP systems, allowing companies to keep their ERP as the system of record while using a collaboration platform for supplier interaction. This means purchase orders and relevant information can move between the ERP and the collaboration platform without requiring buyers or suppliers to manage the same information in multiple systems.
- How long does implementation take? Implementation depends on the complexity of the customer’s processes, ERP integrations and supplier network. Typically we calculate the implementation and adoption in weeks, not months. A typical implementation can be started quickly. The key is not only to implement the software, but to make sure suppliers adopt the new way of working. This is why supplier onboarding and activation are an important part of the implementation process.
- How quickly do suppliers adopt the platform? Supplier adoption can start immediately after implementation and onboarding. The speed depends on the supplier network and the customer’s approach to adoption. A structured supplier onboarding and activation process helps suppliers understand the value, get started quickly and continue using the platform. High supplier engagement is critical because the benefits of Purchase Order Collaboration depend on suppliers actually using it.
- What types of manufacturers benefit the most? Purchase Order Collaboration is particularly valuable for manufacturers with complex supplier networks, significant purchasing volumes and a high dependency on supplier deliveries. It is especially useful when companies have many suppliers, multiple sites, make-to-order or engineer-to-order processes, or a need for better visibility into delivery reliability and supplier performance. The greater the need for coordination between buyers and suppliers, the greater the potential value of collaboration.
- Can the different units or sites of our company use the same Jakamo Account? Yes. The Jakamo service is designed for optimal use of a single network unit, which means a business unit of a company (i.e. a factory, site, business unit). For corporations with multiple business units, it’s possible to establish a corporate structure and cover all business units under the corporate account. Business units of a company can create internal relationships with each other. This enables using the Jakamo service both in customer and supplier interface, as well as, in the internal interfaces of a company.
- Can we create relationships with a supplier that does not yet use Jakamo platform? Yes, you can search and request connections with other companies using the Jakamo service. Furthermore, you are able to invite new companies to join the Jakamo platform and at the same time propose the creation of a relationship with them.
- Can we impact on the development of the Jakamo Service? Yes, absolutely: Jakamo applies a user-centric approach in product development and service design. We are in continuous interaction with our customers and end-users, which forms the vision and development directions of the Jakamo service. The development of the standard service does not create any extra cost for our customers.
Conclusion: Modernising the Process Around the Purchase Order
Purchase orders have become digital. The communication surrounding them often has not.
In many manufacturing companies, purchase orders are created in an ERP system but then managed through emails, spreadsheets, attachments, phone calls, and manual updates. The document itself may be digital, while the process remains fragmented.
Companies modernising procurement are not replacing the purchase order. They are replacing the manual communication process surrounding every purchase order.
Purchase order collaboration connects buyers and suppliers around shared information: what was ordered, what the supplier confirmed, what changed, when delivery is expected, and which exceptions require attention. This creates the transparency needed to respond earlier, plan more reliably, and manage larger supplier networks without continuously increasing administrative work.
The technology is only part of the transition. The real measure of success is adoption: whether suppliers use the process, whether purchase order volume moves away from email, and whether better information leads to better operational decisions.
As supply networks become more complex and collaboration becomes increasingly important. Structured supplier communication will become a basic requirement. Manufacturers that make this transition are building more than an efficient purchasing process. They are creating a more visible, responsive, and resilient supply chain.
