Global logistics firm improves spend visibility by 95%

Simplifying complex business operations

What happens when a business has a sole source of truth for its data? It can spot pitfalls and find the right solutions faster. It can see when and how money is spent. And with a reliable, consistent tool for reporting, it can move forward with agility and speed, identifying new strategies for success.

After a period of continued growth, this global logistics and supply chain management company was operating in more than 80 countries across six regions. However, as the business flourished, operational complexity increased.

Optimizing data efficiency

With no standardized reporting across its multiple regions, procurement processes were showing strain. Data was siloed and spend reports across departments were based on disparate sources. Updated, concise information was not available to leadership for accurate decision-making.

Recognizing the goal of improving spend transparency, the Accenture Spend Optimizer platform was selected to use powerful analytics models to categorize company-wide expenditures. Accenture helped the company enhance operational efficiency across the source-to-pay process.

By co-creating a cloud-based data consolidation, aggregation, cleansing and automated categorization model, we unified spend and payment data from four source systems into a sole source of truth. Data is refreshed monthly and existing categorizations are modified based on feedback from the business.

Driving better value

With 95% of spend now categorized, the business has clear visibility into expenditures across six regions. The improved visibility and control have helped the company streamline its spend to fewer suppliers, driving better value from those relationships through volume aggregation and discounting.

With specific knowledge of where the spending occurs, the company can now make more informed decisions throughout the organization.