We're excited to announce the publication of a new Spend Matters Perspective examining how companies are getting the most from using services procurement benchmarks and KPIs for contingent workforce management. The study, Services Procurement Benchmarking -- Truth in Numbers to Achieve a New Level of Program Results, can be downloaded for free via the previous link. Without question, KPIs have become an integral part of successful contingent workforce management initiatives and now, SOW programs. As procurement organizations become more sophisticated in managing services spend, many are quickly learning about the benefits of looking at overall quality and the total cost of ownership of a given relationship on top of the hourly costs of individual contingent workers.

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This post is based in part on our 2011/2012 research series Procurement Innovation: Answering the Hard Questions. If you'd like to learn more about this and related topics, download our latest free Compass research paper: Getting the Most From Analytics and Benchmarking for free today.

In general, procurement, HR and IT professionals do a dreadful job of leveraging analytics and complete internal/external information sets in everyday decision making in managing services suppliers and contingent spending. Worse, we delude ourselves into thinking that running the occasional report on a monthly or quarterly cycle makes us strategic (hint: it doesn't). Granted, we're always looking for some information to help justify a sourcing or related decision. But our modus operandi for the mundane and routine is more likely to damage our credibility to truly be strategic than to enable a greater degree of respect and trust among stakeholders.

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Earlier this week, we published our latest Compass Research report, Advanced Sourcing Technologies and Platforms to Broaden a Portfolio. I wrote the paper with the hopes of inspiring the many procurement organizations that have taken a leap in deploying basic sourcing technology to consider a range of additional capabilities that can truly transform their efforts, leading to far greater returns than foundational level investments. Our latest sourcing and commodity management report takes a more detailed look at the additional capabilities that mature companies are deploying in today's sourcing and commodity management arena. It examines, among other areas, the case for sourcing optimization outside of logistics (including both services and manufacturing) and commodity risk management platforms for tracking and managing hedging strategies, exposure, etc. It also consider savings implementation/tracking capabilities, total cost management, modeling tools and the integration of design/collaboration solutions into the sourcing and supplier management process.

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Spend Matters has been on a research publishing roll of late, churning out study after study. Lest you think I can keep up this pace on research and analysis on my own for any longer, this is the reason I've brought in Thomas Kase as a Principal Analyst to help. Our latest research report is titled: A Foundational Look at P2P Technologies. It's the first paper in our 2011 Compass Research Series:P2P and Working Capital -- Bridging Technology & Collaboration to Drive Savings and Cash. In our view, the history of the purchase-to-pay (P2P) technology market, while relatively short in duration, has certainly seen its share of fireworks and fire drills over the past decade and a half. We wanted to explore the market state of P2P platforms from basic, hosted e-procurement capabilities to broader deployments combining both best-of-breed and ERP technology components. And we wanted to dumb down a high-level analysis to the most basic level given the potential for serious complexity in more detailed analyses.

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We're excited to announce the publication of a new Spend Matters Compass series research brief: Trapped by Procurement BPO? How to Pull Your Organization Out of the Mire. Authored by Phil Fersht, Founder and CEO, HfS Research and Deborah Kops, Research Fellow, HfS (with additional commentary and editorial oversight by yours truly), this is probably the hardest hitting piece of BPO analysis we've done to date. Part of the challenge that's stunting Procurement BPO growth is the market myth that Procurement is an "easy-peasy" function to source and implement. In reality, Procurement BPO presents a minefield of challenges right from the start. And only the few who have been brave enough to implement it across the enterprise are the wiser. In this analysis, we set out to explore all the traps that every CPO should think about when considering a procurement BPO program.

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Even though there used to be a lot of useful research on the souring technology market, general analyst coverage on these critical tools has materially declined over the years (except for the odd forced ranking/quadrant exercise, here and there). Yet the rate of change and evolution within the market has recently picked up considerably, and it's not easy to capture -- let alone compare -- the nuances of different vendor approaches in a clean 2x2 segmentation or ranking. Because the opportunity to inject a new level of analysis and color into this market is currently missing, we decided to incorporate vendor-focused sourcing and commodity management as a core component of our 2011 Compass Series research, and we're pleased to announce the first paper in this year-long effort: A Foundational Look at the Evolution of Sourcing Technology and Platforms. The report is free to Spend Matters readers and can be downloaded for free, via link above.

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In my first real job out of graduate school, I spent much of my day analyzing structured and unstructured information to come up with potential scenarios for companies, industries and markets. The firm I worked for specialized in what's known among corporate strategy-types as "scenario planning." This type of scenario modeling work differentiates from purely data-driven financial and supply chain forecasting exercises by introducing qualitative inputs as well as enabling participants in the exercise to have a say, and in fact participate in the outcome and analysis that results. I've always found scenario approaches for conceiving where the future may take us to be a useful exercise, and one that can be accomplished in surprisingly pragmatic ways with actionable output. Moreover, scenarios can help inspire those who either participate in their creation or review the resulting materials. In our latest Spend Matters Compass research brief, The Future of Procurement Analytics and Content -- Three Scenarios For Company Adoption, we've attempted to bring alive multiple scenarios for where analytics and embedded content will take procurement in the future based upon technology that is available is today.

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We're excited to announce the availability of our most fun -- and we believe most insightful -- research analysis of procurement BPO to date: Tips for Making the Promised BPO Benefits Real -- Alignment, Focus and Integration. The paper, co-authored by HfS' Phil Fersht and Spend Matters' Jason Busch, personalizes what it takes to get the most from procurement BPO relationships. The secondary title just about says it all: "Jason Busch and Phil Fersht Apply Lessons From Dating and Marriage to Procurement BPO." Despite the whimsical lead-in, this Compass research brief is not all fun and games (though we hope the more informal tone will leave you amused). In fact, the analysis offers some highly prescriptive areas for company introspection before heading down the BPO path (e.g., process maturity examinations, dangers of "lift and shift" thinking and skills, and knowledge awareness) as well specific advice on what potential partners should bring to the table.

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We're excited to announce our latest free research Compass Research brief, Beyond Basic Scorecarding -- Supplier Performance and Development Approaches to Drive Competitive Cost and Risk Advantages. The paper is part of Spend Matters Compass Series IV: Next Level Supplier Management -- Technology, Practices and Approaches for Cost Reduction, Risk Improvement and Supplier Development. If you're curious, you can also check out other recent papers in the series Leveraging Supplier Management Platforms for Multiple Goals: Risk Reduction, Supplier Diversity and CSR and Supply Risk Management -- Segmenting the Technology and Content Landscape and Choosing the Right Category of Solutions. In our latest supplier management research, we've opted to go deep on scorecarding and supplier performance management, topics that do not get enough attention on these pages, let alone anywhere else. Featuring insights from Spend Matters contributors Jason Busch and Sherry Gordon, the free research download is essential reading for those getting started with or accelerating supplier performance management programs.

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