Spend Data Analysis

The analysis of historical spend data is a 'backward' looking activity only deemed useful, at least by us, in the absence of data that enables you to analyse what you will purchase in the future, say in the next two+ years.

Many of our clients, especially public sector organisations, pay someone else to do this on their behalf. However, analysis is stretching it a bit, so let's say reorganise and in some cases categorise their data. Analysis suggests that useful conclusions will be reached; this is rare and organisations are often left to draw their own conclusions from their reorganised data.

'Analysis' is often on spend data that is at best several months old, and at worst 18 months old. It is also often done irregularly, say once every two years. This is next to useless if you want to use the results of data analysis to influence future behaviour to achieve cash savings, better value, greater efficiency, etc.

We can show you how to analyse historical spend data regularly, once every month seems good to us, for example to track the impact of new contracts or to monitor the use of existing contracts. Widely available software and some straightforward techniques are all it takes to do your own analysis as often as you want, without having to pay someone each time.

To do this we:

• Show you how to reorganise your data
• Provide written instructions
• Support you via e-mail and the phone

We can, although it depends on what you need, do the above and then go on to analyse your spend data and provide you with conclusions you can use to achieve better results.

Data reorganisation and analysis has helped many of our clients:

• Extract better value from existing contracts, for example when they renegotiated prices with a supplier they have spent more with than they originally anticipated
• Develop effective purchasing strategies for specific categories of expenditure
• Monitor purchasing behaviour
• Use historic spend patterns to influence future purchasing to better effect

For example

The London Borough of Redbridge now do all their own analysis, previously having purchased a data analysis service, using data that is no more than a month old. This allows them to accurately monitor the impact of any changes made and actively monitor ongoing purchasing behaviour.