Spend Analysis

Through solutions provided by DataFlux, a SAS subsidiary focused on data management, SAS provides the ability to classify and cleanse spend data and analyze and report performance and purchase history quickly, easily and in real time using a Web services framework. The foundation of this offering is a match and classification engine that examines existing data and appropriately assigns the correct taxonomy description and code.

This capability enables:

• Reports designed to uncover and remedy specific purchasing pains.
• Reporting by subject area, including:
  • Measure progress toward a goal (scorecard metric or KPI).
  • Provide breakdowns of progress by organizational units.
  • Show detailed information within each organizational unit.
  • Suggest actions that help to mitigate supplier risk.
• Trend analysis, in order to proactively target emerging problems.

As a result, you will be able to:

• Reduce costs, mitigate risks and improve profits by defining a process to achieve an enterprisewide view of spending, enabling strategic sourcing and contracting processes.
• Establish consistent supplier performance measurements and procedures.
• Classify and cleanse spend data, and analyze and report on performance and purchasing histories so you can optimize spend, rationalize the supply base and reduce supply chain risk.

The solution provided by DataFlux is built upon a single data management platform, providing:

• Prebuilt scorecards and dashboards on the health of inventory, item, product or services data that ranks suppliers based on predefined metrics to monitor and manage performance.
• A services-oriented architecture (SOA) framework that simplifies the process of extending business rules throughout the IT environment, resulting in reduced system costs.
• More control of the procurement analysis process vs. an outsourced spending analysis tool.
• Data quality capabilities across databases, including duplicate record removal and the ability to merge current material data with catalog data for the rationalization of inventory data across business units.
• The ability to determine the complete volume of business with a vendor to help rank suppliers in terms of criticality to the supply chain; helps with volume discount negotiations.
• A means to assess compliance with, and results of, past sourcing activities.
• An automated, centralized spend analysis to help identify potential spend savings companywide.
• The ability to provide suppliers with up-do-date performance information.