Category Archives: Cost Reduction

Marketing is a Huge Savings Opportunity

Sourcing Innovation’s recent Illumination on Strategic Spend Visibility noted that best-in-class companies that strategically source their marketing spend save an average of 14.7% on five marketing and spend categories compared with a mere 7.8% savings for all other enterprises (as per a recent Aberdeen Group study) and that, across the board, with good visibility, an average marketing organization can easily find 20% to 25% savings with Procurement’s help (as per a recent Ariba report).

Why? Last year’s report from the Marketing Supply Chain Institute on why you need to “Define Where to Streamline” makes it clear. A surprising 62.9% of survey respondents admitted they had never undertaken a comprehensive audit and analysis of costs and process efficiencies in their marketing supply chain. Almost two thirds of companies have never analyzed their costs! (And yet they wonder how most of their supplier reps can afford to drive Beamers, Benzs, and Jags!) Furthermore, only 10.8% are adopting workflow or collaboration systems to reduce costs, only 11.5% have a back-end marketing platform to optimize resources and process, and only 14.2% admit that their marketing is fragmented.

In other words, Marketing is a savings gold mine. Turn your strategic spend analysis system loose and the savings opportunities you discover will be numerous indeed.

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Even Good Times Call For Lean Supply Chain Strategies

A recent article over on the Harvard Business Review blogs told us that we should “stand by for the same old strategy mistakes”, because you see the same ones over and over again every time a downturn starts to trend up again. Moreover, similar fundamental strategy mistakes are often made by supply chain organizations when the economy starts to improve. As a result, there are lessons to be learned. Three easy ones are:

  • Too many supply chains.Many companies think they should have multiple supply chains — one for commodity electronics, one for custom parts, one for chemicals, etc. — as this will allow for a razor-sharp focus on streamlining operations around a category. The reality is that you should have only one supply chain (from a planning and management perspective), because every (distinct) supply chain costs money to manage and operate. Just like a business loses when it splits its focus (as 20% of operations will end up accounting for 80% of profit), a supply chain loses when it splits its operations.
  • Throttling back on cost reduction.When times improve and profits start to increase, supply chain often starts to think it can ease up on the push for ever lower prices, give suppliers a break, focus on quality, and / or focus on collaborative initiatives that will take cost out in the future. While it is important to focus on (these) other initiatives, you can never cease your cost reduction quest.
  • Pushing too hard for supplier consolidation.While it is true that most companies have too many suppliers in the supplier master, with 20% of active suppliers accounting for 80% of spend, and while it is true that a smaller supply base can enable greater spend leverage, too much consolidation too fast can greatly disrupt your supply chain.

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Don’t Fall for the FUD!

Now that money is trickling back into technology budgets, many vendors are going on the offensive again. As a result, you need to be ready for the emergence of the vendor FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) machine that is sure to resurface. We’ve already tackled how you calculate the true TCO/TVM of each product under consideration, thereby helping you to dispel the first piece of FUD you’re sure to hear, which will be along the lines of “we’re the cheapest and have the highest ROI, while our competitor is the most expensive and your ROI will be negative if you go with them“, but once you get past this, any vendor with a decently aggressive sales force will have more FUD loaded up and ready to fire (if they feel they are at a disadvantage). Here are three common pieces of FUD that, to be blunt, don’t mean nothing.

  • Our competitor is being sued (by us).So? Many of the lawsuits in this space are nothing more than desperate attempts by the bigger vendors, who haven’t innovated in years, to literally sue their smaller competitors out of commission with baseless lawsuits that plaintiff hopes will be too costly for the defendant to defend (as the plaintiff will attempt to draw the discovery phase out for years before the case gets inevitably thrown out).
  • Our competitor can’t do Fliggle-Flaggle-Floogle.Many vendors with less competitive or innovative offerings will focus on one or two impressive sounding (but essentially worthless) features that their competitors don’t have and turn up the tech talk dial to eleven in hopes of confusing you into buying their product. Don’t fall for the tech talk. It’s not about the technology, but about the value it can deliver to your organization. And sometimes its best not to buy the technology at all, but to contract with a consultancy or BPO who can maximize its potential (especially if the value curve flattens out quickly, as it does with tactical spend analysis [reference]).
  • You have to go all-in.Many providers will insist that you have to buy the whole suite, complete with licenses for every user in the organization, or you won’t realize the full value available to you. So what? It’s not about how many pennies you can squeeze out of the technology, but about how many pennies you can push down to the bottom line. Let’s say you can buy a solution for Procurement only from a competitor for 50K and that you expect you would drive 500K in savings from the purchase. Now let’s say you can buy their solution for the whole organization for 250K and drive 1.250M in savings. Which is better? The Procurement solution. It has a 10X ROI, compared to the 5X ROI the full organizational solution offers. Furthermore, when you look carefully, you see that the extra 200K only saves you an additional 750K, which is an ROI of only 3.75X. Yes, you want to save that additional 750K, but if you keep looking, you might find another 50K point solution from another vendor that will save you 500K of that 750K, which gives you another 10X ROI (and makes the organizational solution a bad buy since you’d now be spending another 150K to save 250K, which gives you an additional ROI of only 1.67X …. which means that one stumble on the organizational solution path and you would have been better off with the (much) less expensive and (much) lower risk point solutions).

And don’t forget, if the management/ownership team hasn’t changed much, what Tweety Bird has been saying for years still holds true. Don’t get fooled. Once a bad old putty cat, always a bad old putty cat.

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Know Your Software TCO & TVM

I’m a big fan of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service). I’m a big fan of the many benefits it offers, including almost instant deployment, immediate upgrades, and the fact that the provider handles the administration, maintenance, security, upgrades, backups, and other IT headaches that most companies just don’t have the IT resources for. And I’m a big fan of the economies of scale that are inherent in a true multi-tenant instance. But I am not a big fan of the recent marketing by a number of the vendors in the space that have recently gone “on-demand”. Most of these new “On-Demand/SaaS” providers have taken a myopic focus on TCO in their marketing, and are making strong claims that On-Demand/SaaS is always cheaper – which is not true.

Regardless of the software delivery model you select (on-site, hosted/ASP, on-demand/SaaS), there are a lot of factors to consider with respect to the Total Cost of Ownership and which model is cheaper ultimately depends on the specifics of the vendor pricing and your internal costs of support. A true multi-tenant SaaS provider who takes full advantage of the economies of scale across a large customer base and who passes those savings on to you will often be cheaper, but this is not always the case. Some On-Demand/SaaS providers aren’t as cost efficient as they claim, some solutions require a lot of manual (data) maintenance and user support (which results in hefty service fees), and, let’s face it, some providers, who will do a magnificent job of convincing you that on-site costs more than it actually does, will charge as much as they can get and use the bulk of your monthly subscription fees to line their pocket books with large annual bonuses. If you can’t calculate the true TCO of each solution under considering, you’ll never know which solution is more cost effective and when you’re truly getting a good deal.

I’ve addressed this issue in the past for e-Sourcing and e-Procurement systems in my post on uncovering the true cost of on-premise sourcing & procurement software (spreadsheet), but since many of you will soon be buying / upgrading again now that money has finally started to trickle back into your budgets, I thought I’d address it again. Especially since the calculation isn’t that much more involved for just about any type of Supply Management technology you might be considering. Basically, all you do is compute the (expected) x-2, x-1, x, x+2, and x+2 year amortized solution cost for the length of time, x, that you expect to maintain and use the software (based on typical enterprise solution lifespans in your organization) for each product under consideration, compute the average annual amortized cost, compute the expected savings, and select the solution with the highest ROI that best fits your organization.

Depending on the delivery model, the following will contribute to the total solution cost:

  • License Cost
  • Maintenance Costs
  • (Expected) Upgrade Costs (to Major Versions)
  • Base Hardware & Networking Costs
  • Hardware Upgrade Costs
  • (3rd Party) Data Costs
  • Database / Data Warehouse Costs
  • Application Server Costs
  • Reporting / Analysis / Optimization Engine Costs
  • Other Required Software Costs
  • System Design, Implementation & Integration Costs
  • Security Costs
  • Support Costs
  • (Re-)Training Costs

You calculate the total cost for each time-frame on a cost component basis using expected upgrade schedules, pricing trends, and expected utilization curves. Then you divide the expected total cost of ownership by the time frame and you get your annual amortized cost, or TCO by year.

Then you compute the expected savings by computing the expected cost savings in each of the following primary dimensions:

  • spend reductions (you expect to realizeequal to savings you expect to negotiate minus savings you expect to lose to maverick spend)
  • efficiency / productivity improvements
  • risk mitigations (which prevent losses due to supply disruptions, non-compliance fines, etc.)

Finally, you can compute the (annual amortized) ROI, or the Total Value Management, of each solution as the (annual amortized) expected savings / expect cost. Then you can truly compare each solution under consideration on a cost, and value, basis.

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Global Sourcing: Addressing Myths with Capabilities Part I: Cost & Quality

Today’s post is from David Henshall, Founder of Purchasing Practice. Dave can be reached at dhenshall <at> purchasingpractice <dot> com.

In this four part series, we examine eight dimensional capabilities that will help you overcome the myths surrounding global sourcing. In today’s post, we will focus on the two dimensions of cost and quality.

The myths surrounding global sourcing are many, widespread and often misleading. They usually revolve around business conducted in developing countries, the so called low cost country sourcing (LCCS) countries. LCCS is fertile ground for the politicians, humanitarians and environmentalist alike, covering misleading sound bites ranging from the export of jobs to the exploitation of child labour and the carbon footprint of the 3000 mile salad.

With the prospect of such reputation damaging headlines, it is critical for firms engaging in global sourcing to get their strategy right. This strategy must be supported by sound operational capabilities that not only manage the supply chain and the relationships within it, but that also make use of a well thought out communications strategy (should unwanted publicity arise).

Purchasing Practice has developed a global sourcing framework (GSF) that incorporates these concerns into a logical management structure, and categorises them under eight dimensions.

 

The Eight Dimensions of the GSF

  1. Cost
  2. Quality
  3. Corporate Social Responsibility
  4. Risk
  5. Opportunities
  6. Politics
  7. Local Context
  8. Enabling Infrastructure
Global Sourcing Framework
Click to Enlarge
The Breakdown of Global Savings Costs
Traditional Model

(based on industrial products example)
labor savings 20-25%
depreciation 5-10%
materials and components 10-15%
economic development incentives 0-5%
savings on manufacturing cost (subtotal) 50%
logistics, inventory costs -10-15%
ongoing management costs -5-10%
taxes and duties -0-5%
net cost savings 25%
Procurement Strategy Council Model

(factoring in hidden costs not considered in the traditional model)
cost savings in traditional model 25%
business partner non-participation -8%
business partner non-compliance -6%
savings (subtotal) 11%
resource intensive sourcing activities -4-5%
reputation risk exposure and mitigation -1-2%
actual savings realized 4-6%

 

Dimension #1: Cost

Whilst costs are typically a primary driver of global sourcing, organisations must not only factor in total landed cost but also issues such as infrastructure cost and increased risk. This can include the cost of setting up a local office or hiring external auditors to monitor your suppliers in a particular country. Additionally, an upfront investment is frequently necessary in order to ensure the sourcing relationship is aligned with business goals and policy.

When these factors are quantified in a sourcing decision, the incremental savings from sourcing to a higher risk region or country are sometimes eliminated, especially when the principle benefit is labour arbitrage. However, many organisations are finding that the benefits of global sourcing still outweigh the investments if the right global partner is in place.

According to a Procurement Strategy Council report:

“Traditional models assessing the costs of global sourcing most often consider higher logistics and inventory costs due to longer supply chains, greater management costs to oversee remote and (often) unfamiliar supplier relationships, and higher taxes and duties. While these costs can reduce net savings by roughly half, emerging markets still provide a significant cost advantage of upwards of 25% savings.” See the breakdown of global savings cost table (above).

So whilst there are low cost countries, global sourcing will always be worthy of a buyer’s attention. Buyers should, however, be aware that the state of comparative cost advantage is dynamic, not static. This is true both within and between competing countries. Buyers must therefore possess the skills and motivations to monitor these dynamics as part of their overall sourcing strategy.

Dimension #2: Quality

Quality is usually a given in procurement organisations these days and is not ‘knowingly’ compromised for cost savings. Successful LCCS can deliver quality that is equal to, if not better than, local sources. This is in part achieved by working with suppliers to help them reach the desired quality standard prior to calling off production. When this is the case, it must be recognised as an additional cost of doing business and factored into sourcing decisions over the long term. The key lies in putting in place all the right quality processes and checkpoints throughout the supply chain by qualifying inputs before they become embedded in products.

The increased risk of materials substitutions (i.e. lead paint and low grade materials) can also be driven by the refusal of Western buyers to allow suppliers to pass along cost increases which become amplified during a recession. So buyers must consider this when reviewing prices with suppliers.

Part 2 will examine Corporate Social Responsibility in global sourcing.

Thanks, Dave.

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