Ardent Partners Spells Out Secrets for Greater CPO-CFO Collaboration

PRINCETON, N.J. January 18, 2011 – Zycus, a world leader in Spend Management Solutions, announces the release of a compelling new research report, The CFO and the CPO: One World, Two Worldviews by Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer for Ardent Partners, a research and advisory firm focused on supply management. The report reflects in-depth interviews with dozens of chief procurement officers and chief financial executives seeking ideas and strategies for improving collaboration and integration between the two critical corporate functions.

While the research identifies parallel transformation paths and drivers that should result in greater alignment between procurement and finance, it also finds several obstacles, the two most significant being,

• A fundamental disconnect on how procurement performance and cost savings, in particular, should be measured and managed, and
• A narrow understanding among CFOs around the multiple levers procurement and supply management can move to improve corporations’ cash positions.

“If finance does not realize the specific impact of a procurement-led strategy, it is less likely to support it and may ultimately miss significant opportunities to improve overall performance,” Bartolini observes.

The report, which is being offered compliments of Zycus, outlines six specific sets of cash-management levers around which CPOs and CFOs can collaborate to improve corporate performance. It also offers a set of specific recommendations for cultivating healthy CPO-CFO relationships, including introduction of the Chief Procurement Officer Scorecard™, which blends four distinct types of procurement performance metrics and is designed to “develop a procurement department that is focused on building sustainable long-term value.”

“As a full-suite provider of Spend Management Solutions, we feel it is our responsibility to constantly bring thought leadership, innovation, and information around best sourcing and spend management

practices to our customers,” says Anurag Dixit, Zycus Vice President of Marketing. “Andrew Bartolini is a highly respected researcher in our industry and we are delighted to sponsor his thought-provoking work.”

To download this report, click here.

Of note: The CFO and the CPO: One World, Two Worldviews is the result of an independent research effort conducted by Ardent Partners. While sponsored, the work is the exclusive property of Ardent Partners and was not influenced by its sponsors.