Between March and April 2014, 210 procurement professionals based in Europe and North America were surveyed and gave their views on the value of the “Source-to-Pay” suite model.
Each day, multinational corporations have to process thousands of invoices, purchase requisitions, supplier data, contracts, expense forms etc…. To meet this challenge, more and more purchasing departments are deploying “Source-to-Pay” suites (S2P suites) which can be defined as ‘a suite of integrated applications designed to manage the procurement processes from strategic Sourcing and Spend Analysis to operational Procure to Pay within a single solution’.
The S2P suites model allows for the easy and efficient management of activities as diverse as: auctions, spend analysis, purchasing categories management, purchase requisitions, sourcing events, billing and vendor relations within the same solution.
To dig deeper into the S2P suite model value and to get Purchasing Department feedback about their usage and their expectations concerning S2P suites, Trending in Procurement surveyed more than 200 procurement professionals:
The main findings of the survey are:
- Purchasing Departments consider the Source -to-Pay suite model a as a true performance driver as it enables: improving procurement team performance (100% of respondents) and a better spend analysis (90%)
- Performance gains are more obvious in homogeneous suites environments (one code, one database,one architecture) than in heterogeneous suites environments (suite of non-integrated modules, operating from different codes, databases and architectures).
- The procurement categories which are most often cited as being a target for a specialized solution (or niche solution) are: travels & expenses, services and raw materials procurement.
- 72 % of participants felt that the deployment method best suited to Source -to-Pay solutions is a phased deployment, module by module.
- Barriers to implementation of Source -to-Pay solutions are not perceived in the maturity of the proposed solutions on the market, nor in their benefits, but rather in the length of the deployment /implementation period (91%)
“The Source-to-Pay suite model is a powerful tool for any Purchasing Department looking to new drivers to improve their organization performance. As demonstrated in the last edition of Trending in Procurement survey, it is crucial for Purchasing Departments, when selecting and implementing a Source-to-Pay solution to take intoaccount a range of criteria, both human and technological, in order to maximize benefits “says Gérard Dahan, General Manager Ivalua EMEA.