Focus on Forecast Requirements In Business Planning Process – 10 Services Procurement Secrets (No. 2)

In our recent research study Applying Supply Chain Rigor to Contingent Workforce Management, we were somewhat surprised at the number of organizations that suggested they invest the time to forecast services procurement requirements up front in business planning processes, especially compared with services procurement sophistication overall (compared with direct procurement maturity).

Still, the results are highly variable. It seems that many organizations have some visibility of budgets, projects and staffing needs (e.g., coming out of workforce planning), but that it is fairly inconsistent across the various contingent labor types. For services procurement to become more mature, this will need to change.

Just as retailers and
 CPG companies make significant investments in sales and operations planning (S&OP) and discrete manufacturers apply expertise in general demand planning and forecasting (including production scheduling), so too should companies model and forecast services requirements. Not only will such efforts allow organizations to partner more closely with suppliers, which will have greater forecast visibility into their needs, it will also enable cost and risk reduction by allowing enough time to determine optimal business outcomes based on different talent scenarios.

This analysis is based on the Spend Matters research study, Applying Supply Chain Rigor to Contingent Workforce Management, which is available for limited period of time for free download, via the previous link, in the Spend Matters research library.