Jason Busch and Pierre Mitchell
While we may chuckle as our children (or we) watch and sing along to the terribly catchy YouTube sensation Dumb Ways to Die, we should pause to think about the lessons learned from thinking ahead and taking extra precautions upfront when it comes to eProcurement. Download this paper to find out the steps you can take BEFORE an implementation to maximize your savings.

Jason Busch
The history of the purchase-to-pay (P2P) technology market, while relatively short in duration, has certainly seen its share of fireworks and fire drills over the past decade and a half. This Spend Matters Compass paper explores the market state of P2P platforms from basic, hosted e-procurement capabilities to broader deployments combining both best-of-breed and ERP technology components. The analysis starts by looking at common pitfalls and challenges in P2P implementations and then covers the range of benefits that companies can expect to achieve through different types of technology deployments. As part of this investigation, it provides a short list of vendor recommendations in different arenas based on a variety of buying requirements and needs. In the paper, we also touch on enabling technology areas that companies should consider in the context of deployments, including supplier enablement strategies, catalog and content management, vendor management, and P2P reporting and analytics.

Jason Busch
This Spend Matters Compass paper takes a detailed look at deployable capabilities in the electronic invoicing/invoice automation sectors and shares the types of cost reduction, working capital management improvements and related benefits that companies with the highest success in this area have realized. It provides a simplified capability/ maturity guide for electronic invoice presentment payment (EIPP), plus geographic adoption patterns and differences between regions, offering lessons that both US and European organizations can learn from. Finally, it also includes a detailed list of contributing factors for building financial business cases to justify the investment and ROI for electronic invoicing/invoice automation initiatives.

By Jason Busch
Companies of all sizes are increasingly looking to deploy strategies to get more from existing ERP, eProcurement and P2P investments. Procurement organizations can now employ a range of supplemental solutions as a strategic extension of current systems to truly optimize spend under management. Our research suggests that certain demographic characteristics determine relevance for pursuing surround strategy approaches.

In the this analysis, we explore five general approaches to “surround” an existing eProcurement or P2P investment:

1. Invest in a new user experience layer that creates a usability buffer and potentially adds new capability
2. Augment existing eProcurement or P2P investments with third-party tools or solutions in targeted areas that improve the basic capability of the system itself
3. Invest in complementary technology that goes beyond original capabilities
4. Work with a third-party solutions provider that will provide technology and more services-driven capabilities
5. Purchase new solutions that gradually consume their hosts