Do you have the visibility and capability to manage your tail spend?
Today’s post is by Dave Wenig, Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at SafeSourcing.
Along the same lines as my recent post about Procurement as a Service (PaaS), I thought I would focus on tail spend. Here again, the concept of managing tail spend isn’t new, but it has also been receiving more attention recently. I would argue tail spend is finally getting the attention it deserves.
I’ve often thought that tail spend is undervalued. I suspect the term tail spend gives the impression that the spend in the tail is insignificant. The reality is that the tail can be awfully long and represents a much larger percentage of overall spend than one might think.
To me, the ability to manage tail spend is essential. SafeSourcing’s approach to tail spend management starts with our SafeSpendAnalysis™ service to identify the categories and subcategories in which the spend can be found. Until you have gone through this process, it is easy to underestimate just how much purchasing is taking place on an annual basis that should be considered the tail. One-off purchases, rogue purchasing, and categories with many vendors providing the same thing are just a few of the common culprits. It’s all too easy for this type of spend to fly under the radar when an organization lacks a proper procurement policy and the ability to proactively manage against that policy.
Again, to SafeSourcing, the concept of managing this type of spend is nothing new. With our SaaS model and our tools and capabilities, we have been targeting tail spend for management and cost reduction since we started. Where others have marketing around this tail spend management, SafeSourcing has experience.
It’s really great to see the recent interest in tail spend and in controlling costs in general. Expense management is so critically important right now. The best strategy a company can have is one that considered their entire spend to be within the scope of their expense management initiatives and that includes the tail.
If you would like more information on how SafeSourcing can help you, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.
