Organizations spend tens of trillions of dollars a year globally on services. It’s not surprising why: The world is shifting from a goods and manufacturing-based economy to one where outcomes are delivered “as a service” — whether that’s traditional labor, complex services (e.g., BPO, professional services) or even the outsourcing of goods production through contract manufacturers. On average, services account for around 50% of spending on third-party suppliers, ranging from 20% to 80%, depending on industry and specific organizations.
Because of this vast overall expenditure and the distributed nature of services spending throughout the enterprise, there are potentially significant opportunities to reduce the cost of services. What’s more, in many organizations, services spend ownership is, in practice, distributed across the organizations’ functional units (e.g., legal, marketing, IT), and procurement involvement can be limited or even resisted. This creates opportunities to obtain savings and improve services outcomes by increasing visibility into and rationalizing and automating related sourcing and performance management processes.
Yet the question then becomes how to obtain these improved results. Over the past several years, procurement practitioners have told us repeatedly that processes and technology for the management of services are not as robust as those for goods and materials, meaning there is much more to do to gain better visibility, influence and control over services spend. Despite the tens of trillions of dollars, organizations spend on services each year, how organizations use technology to support their sourcing and management of services has not been analyzed to any meaningful extent.
State of Services Procurement Technology Survey
Morgan Zombolas, Marketing Engagement Manager, Spend Matters
If you’re a procurement technology provider familiar with SIG and the Global Executive Summit this fall, we hope you’ve also heard of us at Spend Matters.
If not, we won’t fault you.
Spend Matters is the leading global procurement technology media, analyst and research firm. Combining daily news coverage with subscription research, deep technology analysis, and one-to-one advisory services, Spend Matters provides meaningful insight and tailored solutions for procurement buying organizations, consultants, investors and solution providers.
Each year, Spend Matters releases the annual ‘50 Procurement Providers to Know’ and ‘50 Procurement Providers to Watch’ lists. The lists are made up of — you guessed it — 100 vendors determined by the entire Spend Matters analyst team to represent the best of the commercial providers that serve enterprise-level procurement organizations. Plus, the ‘Future 5’ list — 5 outstanding procurement technology startups with innovative technology prowess, momentum and staying power.
This year marks the sixth annual release of the ‘50 to Know’ and ‘50 to Watch’, and we are beyond thrilled to be doing it LIVE in conjunction with the SIG Global Executive Summit. The lists will be published on Tuesday, October 12. Any vendor present at the Summit who is also on one of the lists will receive their award plaque (in person!) from Spend Matters. We’re excited to pose for photos with those vendors present and share the good news all over Spend Matters social accounts.
Morgan Zombolas, Marketing Engagement Manager, Spend Matters
 (1).png "Calling All Procurement Tech Vendors!")
The State of Services Procurement Technology: A joint research study by SIG & Spend Matters
State of Services Procurement Technology Survey