Please click here and here for previous posts in this series. This series of articles is based on insights from the following Spend Matters Perspective: Spend Analysis -- Making Quantum Leaps: Exploring the Realm of Possibility and Untapped Savings with Three New Strategies.

In looking at the impact good data -- and analyzed good data! -- can have on contracting and supplier development initiatives, it's important to understand, just to use one example, how a lack of validation of rate cards and checking of invoices leaves an organization at risk on pricing. But in all cases, the aim should not be just to recover overcharges through analysis -- the key is to discover the underlying reasons for the discrepancies, and to ensure that the vendor is able to adhere to the agreed pricing in future. In this process, it is essential to make sure that the procurement resources leading the charge have access to the right level of detail and that rate card SKUs match invoice data.

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Click here for the first post in this series. And if you're looking for a broader primer on purchase-to-pay systems, tips and organizational maturity models, you can download our recent Compass research brief on the subject, A Foundational Look at P2P Technologies, for free today.

Even before you get on the capability/maturity map for purchase-to-pay systems and processes, you have to start somewhere. And for a surprising number of companies (still today) that somewhere is what we call "Stage Zero." Stage Zero is nothing to be ashamed of. Nor does it imply that an organization has done nothing around processes and systems.

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Please click here for the first post in this series. This series of articles is based on insights from the following Spend Matters Perspective: Spend Analysis -- Making Quantum Leaps: Exploring the Realm of Possibility and Untapped Savings with Three New Strategies.

Spend analysis tools can help with far more than just setting sourcing strategy. Organizations that get the most from spend analysis investments use data to reorient how they look at contracting approaches and focus on supplier behaviors and development activity. Within procurement, there's often a belief that a specific type of established process and/or technology implementation will in and of itself create a set of outcomes. But unless procurement and finance departments work with suppliers to change behavior by putting hard data at the core of sourcing, contracting and compliance (e.g., purchase order) processes, the best intent and dollars spent on procurement transformation and P2P systems deployment will be for naught. Fortunately, new approaches to spend analysis not only help cement processes, strategies and the use of transaction-management technologies -- they also help keep suppliers honest.

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If you want to appear as boring as possible to the pretty little thing sitting next to you at a cocktail party, tell her (or him) that you're in the vendor management field. Trust me, nothing kills social conversation more with a procurement outsider than showing passion toward supplier onboarding, supplier performance KPIs or supply chain risk management. You'd be better off introducing yourself as Lewis Skolnick -- or our resident Lewis Skolnick and lead author of this paper, Thomas Kase -- and wearing the plastic pocket protector than committing this social mixer sin. Not that I'd know anything about this from personal experience, mind you, but I'm basing it on more than just a few passing observations. But the good news for the few of us in the world who care passionately about vendor management and supplier information management is that we've created a new insider's guide to getting the technology piece right. Now, we don't recommend you quote from our latest Spend Matters Compass series report as part of your favorite pick-up line, but we think you'll find Supplier Information Management Technology Fundamentals -- Part One invaluable in the office.

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This post is based on insights from the following Spend Matters Perspective: Spend Analysis -- Making Quantum Leaps: Exploring the Realm of Possibility and Untapped Savings with Three New Strategies.

Many of us who grew up with early spend analysis tools or hand-built Access databases filled with tons of great unwashed spend data are well aware of the challenges of assembling even a basic spend cube using legacy approaches. Clearly, first generation dedicated spend analysis tools and solutions -- including non-software components that incorporated a variety of data acquisition, cleansing, classification and refresh services -- lifted a tremendous burden from do-it-yourself types. Flash-forward to less than a decade later and it's no longer about getting to a single "spend" cube, but rather to create dozens of cubes in all kinds of areas. It's about bringing together a range of new datasets that include traditional sources of spend information (such as AP information) plus a range of additional data sources. For some time, simple AP spend cubes have incorporated relatively basic enrichment-type data, such as diversity status, contract status, payment terms, and purchase orders (POs).

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Like most large firms that have grown by acquisition -- and hardly any haven't -- the supplier data floating around inside the organization reminds me of Samuel Johnson's quip about lies and the infernal side of statistics in that there is old data, missing data, or simply too much data. How would you answer these vendor-related questions?

• Are your records current, do you have all the important facts, have you managed to sift through the numerous redundant data points that are continuously being collected?
• Are you paying the right vendor, only once per PO, using the right payment terms -- without running afoul of internal compliance, IRS or other regulations?

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Spend Matters is excited to announce the publication of our latest Perspective: Getting Past the Existential Connectivity Funk: Stop Waiting for the Supplier Network Revolution. Here at Spend Matters, most of our research titles are quite boring. But we hope this one caught your attention (give yourself some extra points if you already picked up in the literary analogy). We chose this title because in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, two chaps philosophize, debate and engage in quite a lot of self-pity while aimlessly waiting around for a figure they call Godot (who never in fact arrives). The entire play, depending on one's perspective, is an exercise in either rhetoric or existential thinking. But regardless of your vantage point, it's pretty clear that the protagonists accomplish just about nothing by the end. Inaction -- and the status quo -- end up ruling the day.

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Please click here for the for the first post in this series. This post is based on a case study in the Spend Matters Perspective: Services Procurement Benchmarking -- Truth in Numbers to Achieve a New Level of Program Results.

When CareFirst evaluates contingent suppliers based on services procurement KPIs, it bases its approach on considering aggregate performance -- based on both the individual supplier level (aggregate KPIs) and relative performance overall. It rolls up a combination of KLPs/metrics (see below) to provide a forced ranking to suppliers in each category. But actual rank can be less important than trending a vendor's ability to react to feedback when it comes to overall supplier performance management efforts in contingent spending.

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Last year, we published a Spend Matters Perspective analysis titled Services Procurement Benchmarking -- Truth in Numbers to Achieve a New Level of Program Results. The research brief considers how best to implement and deploy services procurement benchmarks and KPIs, primarily focused on contingent spending. The perspective also includes a case study analysis of how CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield has defined and managed their overall flexible workforce initiatives based on a set of KPIs and benchmarks that not only correlate with performance to measure activity but also aim to improve future outcomes. While CareFirst is more sophisticated than the typical organization in deploying and using KPIs throughout their contingent program, companies of all levels of services procurement maturity are likely to learn from their experience.

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