With Tough Times Ahead, Procurement Leaders Go "Back to Basics" and Save More by Performing Spend Analysis
Friday 24th October
With global enterprises facing, perhaps, the strongest recessionary headwinds in a lifetime, Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) and other procurement leaders will be forced to do even more with even less over the next 12 to 18 months. While desperate times may call for desperate measures, a majority of procurement departments need only take a "back-to-basics" approach to uncover huge reserves of potential savings, according to a new study by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company.
"As enterprises struggle to drive top-line growth, managing bottom-line performance is absolutely essential," notes Andrew Bartolini, Vice President of Global Supply Management Research, Aberdeen Group. "Developing or enhancing a spend analysis program and closing process gaps to ensure tight linkage to the sourcing process are clear and efficient ways to drive greater savings and deliver greater value in this period of uncertainty and strict budgets."
The Spend Analysis benchmark quantifies the incremental benefits achieved by the average enterprise that initiates a spend analysis program across a series of metrics including savings from strategic sourcing, the percentage of spend under management, contract compliance, and maverick spending. The report also highlights the strategies employed by leading enterprises to drive performance including:
-- Directly leveraging spend analysis results in strategic sourcing initiatives
-- Tightly linking spend analysis systems with contract lifecycle management and e-sourcing systems
-- Utilization of web-based reporting and dashboards to track key spend and savings metrics
