In the previous blog I spoke about Collaboration being the greatest capability of best-in-class sourcing organizations.

In this blog, the last in the series I’ll cover key takeaways from the Ardent Partners report on strategic sourcing.

We have entered an “Age of Innovation and Collaboration” where the speed and complexity of business will only continue to accelerate. In this age, compliance, control, and efficiency will remain important even as they become table stakes. The winning businesses will be agile organizations that can tap into expertise and find value wherever it exists in the market. Connecting the people, process, and technology “dots” to source the right suppliers will be mission critical to achieving both a sustainable advantage and overall enterprise success.

The success of sourcing technology is based on how open organizations are to implement and adopt core strategic sourcing technology solutions. According to the Ardent Partners study nearly two-thirds (64%) of Best-in-Class sourcing teams are working towards an automated and integrated previous blog over the next three years.

Organizations today need –

Automated Spend Analysis to provide sourcing teams with generally superior visibility into spend, which allows them to make better decisions for rationalizing suppliers, improving financing terms and compliance, running a new sourcing project, etc.

eSourcing to provide a strong return on investment ( “ROI”) for sourcing teams seeking the suppliers that provide the best products and services for the greatest value.

Contract Management to have a central repository for contracts and contractual documents, allowing all internal stakeholders to view and abide by them (i.e., use them and buy against them) and maintain contract compliance.

Supplier Performance Management to help sourcing teams track supplier performance, and also allow them to collaborate with suppliers and work to improve it.

Some key takeaways from the report are

• Connect the “sourcing dots” and ensure that strategic sourcing processes are effective and repeatable across the greater enterprise.
• Make spend analysis the crux of the strategic sourcing program.
• Understand that collaboration is the key to the future.
• Develop measures to track overall sourcing performance, not just savings.