A recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit has found that financial managers often complain of a lack of spending visibility.

The result is a difficulty in correctly addressing cost reduction initiatives.

The introduction of a modern and innovative tool for spending visibility makes advanced methods for the analysis and management of expenditure accessible to medium-size companies, while once could only be accessed by large companies and multinationals.

Efficient spend visibility tools are designed and implemented to ensure a rapid return on investment by generating real savings.

At the base there is a system of classification of costs by nature recognized worldwide, because:

–      is functional to the offer documentation preparation

–      facilitates the exchange of information between suppliers and customers and between different plants, even located in different countries or continents

–      regardless of local or geographical influences, traditions and habits.

The dashboards facilitate the identification of savings potential and the monitoring of the results obtained.

What benefits can I expect from a spend visibility tool?

–      Centralized view for the headquarter

–      Unique and easy to use tool (no specific BI skills required)

–      Data quality

–      Use of all information collected from the sources

–      Efficient improvement of operating times

–      Effective decision-making and concrete opportunities for savings.

 

How to understand if my company is suitable for a cost reduction project supported by a spend visibility tool?

A series of questions help us do this:

–      do you miss a centralized view of overall spending?

–      do you have to invest too much time to collect updated data and often from diversified sources (eg ERP or other …)?

–      Most of the data in your possession are not structured (eg descriptions) and therefore you cannot analyze them and classify them automatically?

–      Can’t you plan effective actions to reduce spending, because you don’t have adequately aggregated data (eg: expense category, supplier, organization)?

–      Do you miss a clear view of the breakdown by cost centres (eg organizations, areas, country …)?

–      Are your available general tools complex and needing strong specific know-how (eg: creating reports and dashboards)?

If you answered at least two “Yes”, associating a spend visibility tool with a cost reduction project allows you to maximize efficiency and savings.

 

 

To learn more about the possible cost reduction possibilities with a spend visibility tool, a free check-up is available: to request it, send an email to info@smartvco.com indicating the code V01 in the subject.