A growing number of senior executives are coming to realize that
strategic supply management can be a significant driver of improved
corporate performance and better risk management. Spend analysis is the
most critical component, and the starting point, of strategic supply
management and is essential to achieving world-class performance. If you
can't analyze your spend data, many opportunities for improvement beyond
the low hanging fruit are without doubt being missed. One of the
foundation blocks for transforming an organization's practices to
world-class supply management is the business process called strategic
sourcing. And one of the requirements for enabling world-class strategic
sourcing results is rigorous spend analysis. There is a lot of confusion
on what constitutes spend analysis and what benefits can it provide.
Spend analysis can help improve several areas: the identification of
cost reduction opportunities, the prioritization of sourcing projects,
the negotiated results, and the tracking and monitoring to ensure that
negotiated results reach the bottom-line. It can also play an important
role in improving compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. However,
implementations are complex and involve many departments within an
organization. If the implementations are done correctly, they can yield
high ROI. If not, they can consume money and deliver no returns due to
lack of adoption. Spend Analysis: The Window into Strategic Sourcing is
the definitive text on this important subject, written by leaders in the
field. It is currently the only reference that provides in-depth
guidance on what spend analysis really is, what it involves specifically
and how to use it in your journey to world-class performance. It
provides both an executive overview and technical details for
practitioners. Readers do not need specialized knowledge in database
systems, information technology or any other field to gain insights from
reading this book. It is a must read for procurement, supply chain
management, operations, and finance executives, and for practitioners
and consultants.
