What’s the Number One most important thing that an organization can do succeed with procurement analytics?
That question and several more were answered in a recent Public Spend Forum webinar with special guest Rob Handfied, Professor of Supply Chain Management at NC State University and Executive Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative. As it turns out, the answer is simple: ask the right questions. More specifically, an organization seeking to benefit from any of its data should first understand the problem it is trying to solve. This allows for the creation of hypotheses that help determine whether the problems are actually solved by the data analysis and if not, why not.

Simply put, without strong hypotheses, organizational leaders will just be feeling around in the dark when it comes to deriving valuable insights from any analytic program it attempts to execute. This graphic pretty much sums it up:

Another piece of advice from Professor Handfield is to start small when setting out on your procurement analytics journey. Sure, there’s a real attraction to real-time analysis and heavy index mining, but beware the data swamp; the answer to better insights through data isn’t always “more data.” Professor Handfield advises organizations to start simple, even with basic invoice analysis that can help leaders understand how analytics can benefit them. As they move up the hierarchy to higher order analytical processeses, they can explore techniques like innovative data leveraging to achieve predictive insights.
Watch a recording of our webinar for more insights and best practices, and stay tuned for more great content coming your way from Professor Handfield and Public Spend Forum!

Cover Photo by Adriaan Greyling from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-photography-of-crocodile-769433/
Graphics Courtesy of Professor Rob Handfield