Survey Highlights
v Supplier engagement is a major challenge and
focus for improvement.
v Managing data is key – whether it comes from
suppliers via catalogs, from master vendor data, or
the spend data used in analytics.
v The top three categories of indirect spend are
all services or services related. With few of these
suppliers sending electronic catalogs and so
many orders created in free text, procurement is
inefficient.
v Cost reduction is the single most common KPI
measured. However, with companies paying too
much across few suppliers; little transparency
in identifying expensive suppliers; lots of manual
work; and insufficient use of supply chain
financing – companies are not taking advantage of
opportunities to reduce cost.
v Spend analysis is a challenge: with most spend
on services (itself problematic) along with lots of
free text ordering, it is difficult to draw reliable
conclusions.
v Less than 10% of respondents tracks ROI in
Procurement, implying a lack of control and cost
overrun.
v Most organizations are actively working towards
improvements in their systems and processes,
and recognize information as the starting point.
Supplier catalogs and spend data are key. Almost
a third are looking at the full P2P process for
improvements.
In the following pages we dive deeper into current supplier engagement practices
identified in the survey, catalog management, procurement practices, and future
improvement plans.
About
survey
respondents:
This report is based on the responses of procurement
professionals based in Nordic and DACH region - members of the
Shared Services and Outsourcing Network, the world’s largest
forum for shared services and outsourcing practitioners. The
survey was conducted by SSON on behalf of OpusCapita.
Current Supplier
Engagement Practices
Current supplier engagement practices are characterized by manual activity: nearly ¾ of the survey’s respondents claim
to be maintaining supplier information manually, and many profess to this information not being up-to-date. Even where
supplier self-service options exist, the majority of respondents still believe the information is out of date.
More crucially, perhaps, the vast majority of respondents described their RFQ/RFP process as poor or just adequate. The
overall lack of transparency or insight also makes it difficult for respondents to rate their suppliers’ performance. A knockon effect is that early payment or supply-chain financing opportunities are not being taken advantage of. Roughly 5 out of
10 respondents do not leverage early discounted or early payment opportunities at present, although nearly a quarter of
these appear to be actively considering some options.
How would you describe your current
process to on-board a new supplier?
How would you describe your current
ability to rate supplier performance?
Poor
Poor
31%
15%
Adequate
Adequate
36%
43%
Good
Good
29%
34%
Excellent
Excellent
4%
9%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
How is supplier information
kept up to date?
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
How would you describe your current
ability to create a sourcing event (RFQ/
RFP) with your existing suppliers?
Manually and it’s often out of date
23%
Manually and it’s typically up to date
54%
Suppliers have self-service options to maintain
their data but it’s often out of date.
17%
Suppliers have self-service options to maintain
their data and it’s typically up to date.
0%
6%
Poor
17%
Adequate
38%
Good
34%
Excellent
11%
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