Today’s post is by David Wenig; Manager – Customer Services at SafeSourcing.
As your organization begins to realize savings across varying categories, you will find that you are able to achieve savings on even some of your smallest spend categories. One of the benefits of having an eProcurement partner in place can be that you can work with them to consider more spend categories where you may not have had the time and resources available to analyze these smaller spend categories.
The risk that your organization must be aware of is that sourcing too many small spend categories and not enough of your larger spend categories will create a huge opportunity cost. As an example, a company that might be enjoying an average eProcurement savings of about 20% over all categories should see any category not sourced using the eProcurement format as one in which they are leaving potential savings on the table.
As the champion of your eProcurement program, take a step back and review the categories being sourced. If you find that the amount of spend running through the program is low compared to your overall budget or expenses, then you are most likely underutilizing your eProcurement partner.
This author would challenge you to engage your strategic sourcing partner to fully capture potential savings. Once you are more fully utilizing eProcurement techniques, you will quickly find real dollar savings on categories that might otherwise have been untouched.
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