I've come to feel that at least a portion of our research over the years has become as pedantic and distant from the actual practice of procurement as much of the traditional analyst/research house material we set out to complement. But when it comes to purchase-to-pay and e-sourcing, it can be difficult to bring the nuances of different functional technology capabilities alive in two dimensional prose -- often seeing is believing and there is no replacement in an evaluation or even shortlist exercise without touching, feeling and having a provider create demonstration scripts based on your own unique requirements. Despite the challenge of enlivening this material outside of an application environment in an actual notebook, desktop or mobile client, I think we're making strides in some of our recent research to quickly get at the tangible business impact that specific approaches and tools can have. Our latest Spend Matters Perspective, Spend Analysis -- Making Quantum Leaps: Exploring the Realm of Possibility and Savings with Three New Strategies attempts to get at the core of how new spend analysis approaches are changing the practice and even charter of procurement and traditional cost reduction exercises.

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