Skip to main content

This is the time look at your data, your Spend Data

Hello Everybody. I was missing the action on this blog since around 4 months now. Actually I was too busy with new data management engagement in my new role. As its a vacation season, its time to gather thoughts and share it..... Hope I will continue...

As the title of this blog says "its a time to look at your data, spend data". YES, as everybody is hard pressed for cash in the difficult time like this - where to look for it? I have one answer - Look at your own transactions to see if you can save some there. Lets check what are you spending on, categorise your spend well.Check if you know where you can negotiate with your vendors and go for it. You will amaze to see how you have ignored this point in the past and how much you can save by doing this. My experience tells me that you can get benefit of atleast 5 to 7 % of savings by doing this activity.

Wondering how - Keep reading ....

Lets make it simple. You have repository of suppliers, and lots of transactions for those suppliers in your system. Right? Now what you need to do is - extract all that information, cleanup your suppliers data for names, address, parent linkages and other things. So you get actual number of vendors you are negotiating with - a non duplicated and neat database. Now look at your transactions. Using your own MRP data, chart of accounts and other available text information, you need to categorize all these transactions. E.g if you have spent 5$ on say ball point pen you should get it under hierarchy like - writing instruments -pen pencils - pen - ball point pen. You can use widely used schema like UNSPSC, or if you have one or one available in the market by leading data management companies.

Now you need a really good dashboard solution, where you upload this cleansed, normalized and classified data. This way you can slice, dice, put graphs and check what is you are spending on, to whom you are paying, how much and where you can negotiate well to save more .......

So you have data - but till the time you do something to convert it to INFORMATION its of no use. This is the process to convert that to useful information, give you a way to see - slice dice visualize your data to help you better understand it so you can take right decision at right time.

Who provides these solution? - I work for Supply chain management company called bristlecone Inc (http://www.bcone.com) and we provide this service partnering with SAP. I am naturally biased - but even if I am not - I will say its a good industry solution and service to go for comparing with other players in the market.

How much it may cost you? depends on what and how much data you might have. But certainly you will get more than 5% of saving on your spend after doing this at the cost of less that 1% - So 4% is all yours.

Whom should you contact - write me - pmendki@gmail.com or just reply to this post and I will get back to you.

Comments

  1. Dear Prashant Mendki,

    I had the opportunity to go through your article, I endorse with you.

    I do work on it round the year basis of Tagging Materials from various Domains on to UNSPSC Codes & then mapping them with various other International Codes likes HTS & ECCN or EAR-99 [for US],NIC[Indian], SITC,CAS, CCL /BIS etc.

    Then collating the data with all its Attributes / Criteria s, for various purposes including Vendor Inventory, Procurement-Management, & Spend Analysis.

    This helps corporates in handling their Spend Managements accordingly.

    U M PRABHU.
    umprabhu@consultant.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am tackling the establishment of a data taxonomy for our enterprise (the Naval Oceanography Program) which consists of several production centers, multi-discipline data and products. It is unclear to me in what context to develop the taxonomy. In reading best practices there are a number of approaches. This taxonomy will be inserted into our Enterprise Architecture and should provide meaningful information to both upper management for resource allocation, to me and other I.T. personnel for Information Lifecycle Management, and to the end-user, for knowing what is available and what it is used for. I have been asked to look at it from a product standpoint and a data standpoint. I have also been asked to start at top and bottom levels to find the commonality in between. A taxonomy should be as flat and simple as possible otherwise, in my mind, it is not very useful and too cumbersome to look at. Any ideas on where to jump off at? thanks Tracy
    tpsciencegal@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Prashant,

    Currently I am working on Spend analysis, I do have knowledge of various taxonomy like UNSPSC, eClass. However i have knowledge of MDM. Its very nice way to optimise company cost as well as maintain inventory

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bristlecone Webinar on Supplier Risk Management

Purchasing Magazine, Bristlecone and SAP getting together to bring you very good discussion on supplier risk management. Webinar will be held on June 24, 2 to 3 PM eastern Time, USA. Contributors are - Paul Teague from Purchasing magazine , Jason Buch from spendmatters , Naresh Hingorani from Bristlecone - Supply chain leader company and Padmini Ranganathan from SAP. As we always talk about spend visibility, data issues, strategic sourcing - these distinguised speakers will bring out more strategic views to the table on how all this can be achieved to analyze your business risks better, upfront. You can register for event by accessing this link and register See you there.

Master Data Management – Product or Process ?

I have 2 SAP systems and I want to fix my material master, Services Master. I want all that data to be clean, standardized, classified, enriched and load it back to my SAP in next 6 months. What do you suggest ? Chris - one of my key client was explaining during a “solution understanding” call. My sales manager Tom, enthusiastically started talking about new version of the MDM platform by ERP company, tools, technologies, product landscape, licenses etc. After 30 minutes of sales pitch, I could see confusion on Chris’s face clearly. He said - but I don’t want to add any new product in my infrastructure for all this. Can you just implement MDM for me without I adding any new software ?   Both are using MDM implementation as a keyword, but in a completely different context. Chris wants to implement MDM as a process while Tom was trying to sell MDM as a new software. Whats the difference ? Lot I will say. MDM as a product – when you sell a   software license to a...

Data Management - Elephant & Seven Blind Men

I am sure most of you read a story of Elephant and Seven Blind Men. For starters - this is how the story goes - "A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said: 'It is like a pillar.' This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently." As Wikipedia mentions - This story has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies. At various times it has provided insight into the relativism, opaqueness or inexpressible nature of truth, the behavior of experts in fields where there is a deficit or inaccessibility of information, the need for communication, and respect for different perspectives. The moral of the story is - While one's subjective experience...