BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - August 11, 2010) - Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (
Over the past decade, spend analysis has risen in prominence as the most critical function in the procurement group's toolbox by helping to fuel sourcing pipelines and educating Chief Procurement Officers and Chief Financial Officers in executing more-informed business decisions. Spend analysis has also contributed to a sharp spike in overall corporate spend visibility. This study finds that the vast majority (70%) of organizations have increased their overall spend visibility over the last two years as a direct result of spend analysis processes and tools.
"Companies are sitting on a veritable goldmine of information," said Christopher Dwyer, research analyst and co-author of the study. "Spend analysis is the major enabler in digging into that corporate spend data and transforming it into true value. Both the sourcing and finance teams can leverage this intelligence to execute more-informed decisions as it relates to contract management and forecasting / budgeting."
The report also heralds the importance of spend analysis automation, as manual spend analysis reveals a lack of repeatable processes that require users to push along each step within the greater spend analysis system. "Spend analysis automation is a critical factor for those companies looking to make significant gains from this set of processes," said Scott Pezza, senior research associate and co-author of the report. "Automated systems provide for more accurate data classification and enrichment and allow users to easily 'slice-and-dice' spend data to derive targeted and insightful information."
The new study recommends that companies gain an understanding of where exactly their spend data resides, identify potential avenues for increasing the amount that is captured moving forward, and use intelligent sourcing practices to educate themselves.
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About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.
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