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Spend Analysis - What to choose product or solution ?

More and more I study the vendors and their spend analysis solutions, methodologies in this big big market place of procurement spend, strategic sourcing and related areas, I wonder if there is more gap between "product" and "solutions". Everybody is trying to jump and say "here is more automated solution", "if you can do it in 10 hrs - here I am with 6 hrs", "If you get it for 100 $, here I am with 80$" and likewise on all other comparable factors. Yes, the market is competitive and customers are well educated - so marketing yourself well, providing fastest turnaround and proposing competitive pricing is required and much needed in crowded market. But thats for the short term I guess. In longer term - more and more customer education is required to make them aware of Solution rather than a product. Now, whats the difference?

Is anybody working with customers in identifying their organizational spend analysis goals -  short term, mid term and long term ? Short term could be - 6 to 8 months, mid term is 20 to 24 months and long term is around 40-48 months. In a haste to provide "my" solution, is anybody working with customer to create roadmap? Is there a extensive assessment going on before somebody says - and if for this situation there is this roadmap - which will have you results after 10 months only. Or people just saying - whatever is your situation, my solution accomodates "all" you needs - just give me business.

What would be the ideal "Solution" for customer -
1. No one size fit all solution
2. No "product" proposal - but a roadmap proposal for identifying and recognizing savings
3. A roadmap to understand- if commodity is important, if grography, a business organization or specific system that needs attention

I think customer also needs to know - just throwing few thousand dollars, looking at fancy "automated" solutions and getting spend classified in minutes is not the end goal. Does these provides real savings end of the "term" (not day). Is vendor consultants capable of understanding "your" business, can they convert the numbers into savings - or they bunch of people sitting and saying your "air ticket" to be classified as "travel" and not "you have opportunity to leverage on hotel deal than air travel".

Thanks
Prashant Mendki
pmendki (at) gmail (dot) com

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