Spend Matters » Procurement Research

Getting More from P2P with Better Analytics and KPIs (Part 2)

Jason Busch — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:02:12 +0000

In the first installment of this series, based on the Spend Matters research paper Avoiding “Dumb Ways to Die”: eProcurement and P2P Style Adoption Scenarios to Breathe Life into Implementations, we began to explore the limitations of analytics and insight often found in today’s P2P implementations. When thinking about the type of insight that’s essential for building through better dashboards, reporting and analytics, we must consider a number of areas. This visibility could include the ability to drill down on vendor information, such as spend with specific suppliers on a PO, non-PO and invoice basis linked back to historic baselines [...]

Compliance Elements and Supplier Management

Jason Busch — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:05:11 +0000

When Spend Matters surveyed 36 companies during Q4 2011 on their interest in substance and materials centric compliance as part of supplier management and supply chain risk programs, a number of compliance elements emerged that were of keen interest to corporate procurement and supply chain leaders. Materials conformance was noted by nearly 70% of survey respondents as being a compliance element “when selecting and managing vendors and materials.” Somewhat similarly, the importance of adherence to a proprietary set of internal or adherence to a set of industry criteria was noted by 62% and 56%, respectively. Interest in environmental health and [...]

Enabling Suppliers Without Massive Cost or Effort

Jason Busch — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:02:08 +0000

What organization does not have thousands of suppliers that ideally they would onboard into a closed-loop, visible procurement environment? Just about every middle market and larger entity wants this level of supplier enablement. Yet one size never fits all when it comes to onboarding and enablement for a given supply base, which is why the great majority of vendors are not linked into a closed-loop system. For supplier enablement, companies must make trade-offs when it comes to how quick and cheap they want a process to be. Furthermore, they must consider what level of automation touch points they require: self-service [...]

An Open Letter to the WSJ: Do Big Companies Really “Pinch Suppliers on Payments”?

Jason Busch — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:53:24 +0000

When we see business and news media coverage of the somewhat esoteric procurement, finance and supply chain topics that form the core of our focus on Spend Matters, we usually celebrate. The classic logic is that the more attention the popular press can bring to supply management, the better for everyone on the supply side. Yet sadly, this is not always the case anymore. Shades of grey are to blame. Procurement and finance topics are more complicated than ever, especially where new processes and supplier engagement approaches can lessen the often zero-sum buyer/vendor relationship game. To this end, we believe [...]

2013 CPOs Agenda – First Quarter Update

Pierre Mitchell — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:33:04 +0000

I caught up with some old colleagues of mine at The Hackett Group, who offered to let me share some of the insights from their 2013 procurement key issues study. I am familiar with the study (because I actually developed it!), but here are some of the highlights and my reflections upon them one quarter into 2013: The overall focus for the enterprise was not just cost discipline, but agility to respond to changing global business conditions. Just sitting in on annual stakeholder planning and budgeting sessions is not enough to stay aligned. Proactive engagement of stakeholders to develop scenarios [...]

Conflict Minerals Compliance: Bill of Material (BOM) Approaches

Jason Busch — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:29:39 +0000

This post is based on excerpts from the MetalMiner (part of the Spend Matters Network) paper: The Definitive Guide to Conflict Minerals Compliance for Manufacturers: An A–Z Guide to Conflict Minerals and Semi-Finished Metals. Spend Matters PRO Subscribers can also click to read two more detailed technology analyses on conflict minerals compliance strategy here and here. If one could leverage opportunities to use the International Material Data System database for 3T’s/G purposes in an industry like automotive, or if a company builds their own approach tied to a BOM, PLM or similar resource– at some point it makes sense to [...]

eProcurement Troubles: Finding Approved Suppliers That Don’t Seem to Exist (Part 2)

Jason Busch — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:12:37 +0000

In the first installment of this series, based on the Spend Matters research paper Avoiding “Dumb Ways to Die”: eProcurement and P2P Style Adoption Scenarios to Breathe Life into Implementations, we began to explore the Twilight Zone buying scenario of frontline users who can’t seem to find approved suppliers. In other words, on-boarded vendors vanishing into thin P2P air. To overcome this challenge, many leading organizations are starting to use supplier information management (SIM) tools in order to find potential suppliers from a smaller universe of registered/approved suppliers rather than from an über-marketplace or world-at-large. The linkages with eProcurement can [...]

Conflict Minerals Compliance: Data Enrichment Sources

Jason Busch — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:18:07 +0000

This post is based on excerpts from the MetalMiner (part of the Spend Matters Network) paper: The Definitive Guide to Conflict Minerals Compliance for Manufacturers: An A–Z Guide to Conflict Minerals and Semi-Finished Metals. Spend Matters PRO Subscribers can also click to read two more detailed technology analyses on conflict minerals compliance strategy here and here. A key stop on your conflict minerals compliance journey involves finding the right providers of external data relevant to your industry and products. Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) and Bureau van Dijk serve as two good candidates to help validate and augment supplier data. They [...]

eProcurement Troubles: Finding Approved Suppliers That Don’t Seem to Exist (Part 1)

Jason Busch — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:07:00 +0000

This post is based on content contained in the Spend Matters Compass series paper: Avoiding “Dumb Ways to Die”: eProcurement and P2P Style Adoption Scenarios to Breathe Life into Implementations. The paper, authored by Spend Matters Chief Research Officer Pierre Mitchell and Jason Busch, is available for free download in our Spend Matters research library. Do many of your SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Ariba or other eProcurement and P2P users have trouble finding approved suppliers that don’t seem to exist? You’re not alone. It’s strange, but not uncommon—or at least in far too many eProcurement implementations we’ve observed over the years. [...]

Conflict Minerals Compliance: Supplier Management Platform Basics

Jason Busch — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:08:24 +0000

This post is based on excerpts from the MetalMiner (part of the Spend Matters Network) paper: The Definitive Guide to Conflict Minerals Compliance for Manufacturers: An A–Z Guide to Conflict Minerals and Semi-Finished Metals. Spend Matters PRO Subscribers can also click to read two more detailed technology analyses on conflict minerals compliance strategy here and here. When it comes to gathering and documenting conflict minerals compliance, a supplier management or supplier information management (SIM) toolset can do a reliable job where A/P modules of ERP systems come up short with gathering documents, capturing sign-offs and fostering multi-tier relationships. The [...]