So You Want to Buy Strategic Sourcing? Key Differentiators to Consider

In our previous installments of this series, we focused on some of the key differentiating aspects of contract management and spend analytics solutions. As you may recall, rather than focusing on the features and functions that most providers deliver, this series is focused on highlighting areas that pop up as differentiators in the eyes of the more progressive practitioner organizations that we speak with. The idea is to help separate the wheat from the chaff even though we don’t know what exact flavor of bread that you’re baking.

Within the sourcing area, we will also take some additional liberties by highlighting some key functionality that might perhaps better fall into an “extended sourcing” category that transcends just traditional sourcing strategy and execution. For example, project portfolio management, savings management, performance management, stakeholder management, and other processes clearly transcend just sourcing, but from a pragmatic “on the ground” standpoint, these are often prioritized by sourcing and category management teams. They are trying to drive short-term value while trying to scale their efforts with a form of knowledge management that will support their longer-term transformation outside of episodic sourcing events and into a more end-to-end lifecycle view of progressive category management.

There are also some provider-level differentiators that transcend software feature-function nuances, and we’ll highlight these as well. OK, let’s dive in.