The Sourcing Interests Group recently ran an interesting article on optimizing your procurement technology investments in 2009. Although it had some good suggestions, my top five suggestions would be the following:

1. Get Visibility Into Your Spend (Spend Analysis)
   If you don’t know how much you’re spending on each category, sub-category, product, and service, who you’re spending it on, in what amount, by unit, you need to get this visibility. Get a good spend analysis solution and dive in!
2. Take Your Strategic Sourcing up a Notch (with e-Sourcing)
   Start with the most attractive savings opportunities that were outlined in step 1. This is your best bet to negotiate big savings in this downturn.
3. Focus on Contract Compliance (adopt Contract Management)
   You need to enforce hard-won savings by insuring that internal staff and suppliers are compliant with contractual agreements.
4. Implement e-Procurement
   Done right, this will make it easy for your buyers to buy on contract.
5. Get a Grip on Global Trade (adopt Trade Visibility solutions)
   Chances are your global sourcing endeavors are needlessly costing you more than you think! As per my recent Illumination on why you need trade visibility, you’re probably paying more than you need to on duty, using costly inefficient processes, paying unnecessary document preparation costs, and making costly errors that are costing you million of dollars a year.