SAS Institute has announced the release of the latest version of the its solution for Supplier Relationship Management (SRM).
With its enhanced analytic, score-carding and information-delivery capabilities, Version 2.0 is designed to help organisations effectively manage relationships with all their suppliers, and create substantial savings in the process.
"Companies today are truly starting to recognise the value of understanding their supplier landscape," explains Chris Turner, senior consultant at SAS Institute. "That's what SRM is all about. And SAS, through our SRM solution, has been addressing this need for almost two years. Version 2.0's scorecarding, portals and analytics extend our offering and power strategic sourcing."
In today's uncertain economic times, companies are looking for new, untapped sources of revenue and savings to boost their bottom lines. One possibility is the sourcing and purchasing of goods and services.
Says Turner: "All companies purchase goods and services, whether direct goods like electronic components and machined parts, or indirect goods like office supplies and computers. Yet in an environment of mergers and acquisitions, growing mountains of supplier (and other) data, and disparate computer systems spread around the globe, it is very difficult for organisations to see the big picture of what they are buying and whom they are buying from."
Companies are now realising that e-procurement tools - with their focus on optimising transactions and reducing paper processing - deliver a quick but limited return on investment. To achieve true strategic sourcing and the accompanying significant savings, organisations are looking to reduce spending and add value through better supplier relationships, both for direct and indirect, or MRO (maintenance, repair and organisation), spending.
"The SAS solution for SRM helps organisations compete through enhanced supply chain management," says Turner. "Organisations can collect, analyse and leverage all aspects of their supplier data and purchasing history to create an accurate overview of total spending. They can also rate and rank their supplier base, match their business objectives with individual supplier performance, identify areas for cost consolidation and predict optimal procurement strategies across traditional and e-channels."
All of these activities can lead to significant savings and return on investment (ROI). Depending on the size of the firm, savings that come from knowing more about suppliers before signing or renewing a contract are normally in the range of 5% to 15% of an organisation's total purchases.
Built on the flexible, scalable, and open component-based architecture of SAS software and fully Web-enabled, Version 2.0 of the SAS Solution for SRM provides new capabilities. This includes strategy alignment and scorecarding, a critical piece of the SAS Solution for SRM, which enables companies to quickly determine how well the sourcing process is functioning within a department, division or the entire organisation. This not only helps in aligning procurement activities with corporate goals, but also in measuring the impact that these activities have on specific key performance indicators.
Another feature is a centrally managed, publish-and-subscribe framework as part of an SRM portal. The use of publish-and-subscribe technology allows IT managers to set up channels of interest and specify who should have access to it. It allows information producers to publish information, data and reports directly to a customised SRM portal.
SAS has also updated its data warehousing technology to include data quality tools and improved capabilities for transforming data into a warehouse. "Once the data is properly warehoused, customers can use data mining and other analytics to compare supplier performance, quality and spending patterns in order to rate and rank supplier relationships," comments Turner.
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