Businesses, public organizations and the public sector all want to save money on the software they buy and the hardware they use. But it’s not easy to get in the right spot to do that when there are so many options to consider, budgets to work with and people who have their own opinions about what’s best. If you find yourself in this position or if you have friends or family members who are then this article on intelligent spend management can help you take the next step toward saving money on your tech purchases and keeping your data secure.
It is a combination of purchasing, supply chain and inventory management software that optimizes spend based on parameters such as risk, supplier performance, regulatory requirements and financial targets. The program typically encompasses two primary components.
First, it automates spend analysis to determine which suppliers are performing well and those that are not meeting expectations. Second, it implements actions to correct or terminate poor-performing suppliers in order to optimize spending. These actions can include seeking price reductions from poor performers or terminating relationships with them altogether. Ultimately, intelligent spend management seeks to optimize overall company spending while ensuring compliance with regulations and avoiding unnecessary risks.
Benefits of an Intelligent Spend Management Platform
In addition to reducing overall spend, intelligent spend management can help increase productivity. Here are a few ways it can support employees: Provide insight into spend data: Having relevant and readily available spend data, such as departmental budgets, expenses and cost-per-transaction information helps everyone make better decisions about how to optimize resources. Uncover hidden costs: By analyzing bills for duplicate charges or overpayments, employees can prevent billing errors from sneaking past them.
By making it easier to manage expenses and optimize budgets, intelligent spend management solutions give employees more time to do what they do best driving revenue. With so many powerful benefits to adopting a spend management platform, organizations can empower their workers and move towards a culture of intelligent spending. The increase in employee efficiency is one of many ways intelligent spend management platforms are changing business for good.
Comparing Traditional to Smart Approaches to Managing Spending
How do you know if your spending strategies are intelligent? Traditional approaches to controlling spending can be likened to a paper-based bookkeeping system. The information is recorded on spreadsheets, manually entered and updated, with no intelligence built in. For example, a company might have budgeted $1 million for advertising in 2014. In reality, it spent only $900,000 and has another $100,000 remaining at year end. An intelligent approach would automatically include that additional money in its calculations for 2015 and ensure that it does not overspend on advertising by creating an artificial funding restriction or alerting senior management when overages occur all without any action required by finance managers.
A system is able to perform actions based on data in a way that a traditional approach cannot. In doing so, it eliminates overspending and ensures all spending has been authorised. Using an intelligent spend management system allows financial managers to focus on higher-level activities such as strategic spend analysis and working with line managers and procurement staff to negotiate contracts and obtain better pricing. This results in more time spent on managing value for money, which is what finance departments should be doing.
How Has Big Data Changed the Spenders’ Relationship with Money?
Our use of money has been changed, particularly when it comes to our perception of it. Money used to be just money merely currency we exchange for goods and services or invest in worthwhile causes. Nowadays, though, everything around us is connected with online access that allows us to track our expenditures in real time. And so Legal Spend Management we can see exactly how much cash is being spent on what and who it goes to which means that we are becoming far more aware of how we are spending our income than ever before. It also means that things aren’t always going as they should and business leaders must do all they can to help their team members make smarter spending decisions if their businesses are going to succeed in today’s climate.