Source-to-Pay function is a procurement process that involves identifying and analyzing suppliers, negotiating with suppliers, awarding contracts, managing supplier contracts, ordering supplies and eventually releasing payments after accepting the delivery of the products. Automation of the source-to-pay process offers several advantages such as making the procurement process more efficient, simplifying supplier management, reducing maverick expenses,… Continue reading Why should I automate my Source-to-Pay (S2P) function?
An ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning system. It is used to manage business processes that are designed to enhance operations that connect many aspects of the company. Typically, the objective is to combine operations, like planning, finance, supply chain management, HR, inventory management and CRM into a single integrated system. However, when it comes… Continue reading How are e-procurement systems different from ERPs?
Procurement digital transformation across the complete supply chain enables digitization of end-to-end processes from gathering and reviewing data on sourcing needs to promoting supplier relationship management to ensure quick and efficient procurement of goods and services. Here are the top 6 advancements that are defining digitalization in procurement strategies: Automation: BPA (Business Process Automation) and… Continue reading What are the new advancements in digitalization in procurement strategies?
The activity of monitoring and analyzing the organizational spend is called Spend Analysis. The process of spend analysis gives deeper insights into spend patterns in the company and helps in reducing costs, boosting efficiency and managing supplier relationships by increasing visibility and transparency. Using real-time data and analytics procurement teams can dig into spend patterns… Continue reading Why do you need spend analysis and how it is used in procurement?
Purchases done outside of agreed-upon contracts are referred to as “maverick spend.” These purchases may not have been made on purpose, and some may have been made due to real errors or a lack of understanding. Such purchases that deviate from established procurement processes within the organization result in the company not being able to… Continue reading What is maverick spend in procurement and how do I reduce it?
Different organizations might use different ways for spend analysis based on their own demands and variables. The most common approach to perform spend analysis is as follows: Procurement teams must first identify the source of spend. Acquire and consolidate the relevant data. Eliminate errors by cleaning the gathered data. Perform grouping or segmentation of suppliers.… Continue reading How do you do spend analysis?
Spend analysis is one of the most important cost-cutting methods used by procurement teams. It can help organizations in identifying the areas in which the company overspends, or in which cost or spend can be reduced. A spend analysis can identify things such as maverick spending, contracts not being fulfilled, turnaround times not meeting expectations,… Continue reading How to reduce costs with procurement spend analysis?
Spend management solutions offer many standard spend analysis reports that can help organizations identify saving opportunities and provide visibility to their spend patterns. Many solutions also allow you to create custom reports as per your business needs. Some of the most commonly used reports available in MeRLIN are Spend by Buyer, Spend by Supplier, Spend… Continue reading What are the different spend analysis reports generated using spend management software?
The spend cube represents various dimensions representing the spend data that is required to be analyzed. The dimensions usually include Categories/sub-categories, buyers, spend with suppliers, etc. MeRLIN allows you to browse cubes from the buyer portal enabling users to interact with the data warehouse generated by MeRLIN in a user-friendly way and to view customized… Continue reading What is spend cube analysis & how can you do spend cube analysis with MeRLIN?
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) is a systematic way of assessing and identifying suppliers who are crucial to a business and developing strategies to maintain successful relationships with them. It refers to all the business processes and activities that deal with the entire lifecycle of a supplier for an organization and seeks to utilize supplier relationships… Continue reading What is supplier relationship management? What is the importance of supplier relationship management process?
