Procurement <3 Data

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sievo.com

Procurement
Procurement
Data
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 Contents
10 Introduction

12 Why procurement loves data

34 Why data management for

procurement is hard

52 Build or buy?

80 Leveraging procurement ecosystems

98 Democratization of data

116 Procurement and IT working together

136 To data and beyond

142 About the authors

144 Acknowledgements

146 About Sievo

8 9

Introduction
Procurement Loves Data is your glimpse into the future of
procurement. Digital transformation in procurement is moving more
towards ecosystems of data, technologies, and partners. No one
person (or software) can do it alone. Diverse people, viewpoints,
partners, solutions, and data sets all have a part to play. We believe
in democratization of data: equal opportunities to understand data
and make better, educated decisions. The book promises fresh
perspective on how IT and procurement can contribute more value
to the organization—together. Connected by their love of data, these
two functions must learn to join forces on their data mission.
We provide you with a complete picture of the challenges and
opportunities of procurement data, whether you’re a CPO, CIO,
or simply a data hugger. You will get the full view on total cost of
ownership for spend analytics, learn how to make sure users love
and adopt your chosen solution and what are the essential drivers
of a collaborative IT-Procurement relationship. In six parts, this book
explains…
Why Procurement Loves Data:
Get to know procurement data, and why it’s growing in its strategic
output and potential. You’ll also learn the basics of procurement
analytics and their contribution to organizational strategy, as well as
the trends driving digital transformation in procurement. Learn the
essential skills to entering the new data paradigm.
Why Data Management for Procurement is Hard:
One common pitfall of procurement data analytics is the challenge
of data combination. Gain new insights into why data will never
be perfect and why it doesn’t have to be if your data wrangling
processes are robust enough. Finally, understand the big picture of
how procurement data and spend analytics can add business value to
the organization.
10
Build or Buy:
The long-standing debate on the procurement analytics build-or-buy
has never been discussed in this much detail! This chapter provides
a complete picture of the total cost of ownership (TCO) associated
with the two alternatives, along with industry-leading best practices
on partner selection, implementation, and successful adoption. You’ll
gain the best arguments for explaining why your chosen solution is
the best fit for your team’s needs and level of maturity.
Leveraging Procurement Data Ecosystems:
Gain a high-level perspective on what a procurement data ecosystem
consists of, its foundational architecture and what benefits it offers for
procurement analytics and agility. Here you’ll find a critical assessment
of full-suite solutions and best-of-breeds regarding their connectivity
and ability to advance analytics maturity.
Democratization of Data:
Data belongs to everyone! Data democratization allows equal
opportunities to develop and influence. By unlocking the potential
of users through the democratization of data, you gain a wider array
of perspectives, insights, and knowledge while improving your data
quality. Realize the benefits of “data friendly leadership,” improve your
organization’s data-driven decision making, and learn why the “walled
garden” method of data management is holding you back. Dig deeper
into principles of data security and the critical role of user experience
(UX) in a data democracy.
Procurement and IT Working Together:
In conclusion, we take a step back and look deeper at the IT-
procurement relationship. With honestly and humility, this chapter
reflects on the ways procurement and IT can learn from one another,
and some tangible steps to improving the relationship. Learn to
speak the same language with our (not so serious) procurement-IT
translation guide!
With love,
Sievo
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 CHAPTER 1

Why
Procurement
loves Data

12 13
 D
igitalization has been a main driver for enterprise
productivity for the past three decades. In many
large organizations, a centralized IT function has
supported the transformation of key functions like sales or
customer service powered by data. Operational functions like
procurement, on the other hand, haven’t exactly been the

“
pioneers of digitalization, but they are quickly catching up.

A new generation of procurement leaders have learned

to love data. They have learned to wrangle data across
a variety of source systems to understand and influence
procurement spend across the enterprise. Modern day
Insufficient facts always procurement heroes don’t wear capes—they use data as a

invite danger.” superpower. They use it to understand and optimize their

supplier networks, forecast market trends, and defend
profitability through efficient and strategic sourcing. The
field of procurement analytics has emerged from the need to
understand past procurement performance and guide future
- Spock, Star Trek (1967), decision making.
season 1, episode 24
Data management for procurement, though, is a difficult art
to master. It’s requires making sense out of large amounts of
data from disparate systems and sources to create business
value. This book is an in-depth look at the full spectrum of
data-related challenges and opportunities for procurement.
The digital focus has been on sales and customer data for
some time now…it’s time to see the value of procurement
data.

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The IT function is an important enabler of procurement’s
digital transformation, while procurement is well positioned
to collaborate with the external partner network and
What is procurement data?
is familiar with rich external data sets that can provide
Data in procurement can mean a lot of things. Procurement
exciting opportunities. Procurement data is a greenfield for
data includes vendor data, master data, contract data, bills
procurement and IT to collaborate and provide strategic
of material, performance data, sustainability score cards,
insights. Together, the two functions can make the most out
transaction data, purchase order details, and much more.
of the data at hand and create sustainable business value.
There are two dimensions of procurement data. First,
procurement data can be internal or external. Secondly,
Every superhero needs a sidekick. For close to two decades,
procurement data can be structured or unstructured. When
Sievo has mastered the art of extracting, combining, and
combined, these dimensions make up four distinct types of
enriching spend data. Simply put, we have become damn
procurement data: internal structured, internal unstructured,
good at turning even the crappiest data into actionable
external structured, and external unstructured (see Figure 1).
insights. We wrote this book to help IT and procurement
professionals hear each other out. Too long have they been
Internal and external data exists on a spectrum from easier
competing for the title of “most difficult” function because
to access to harder to access. For instance, internal vendor
of their requirement bingo and lengthy processes. This
master data is easiest to access because it is usually stored
book is a manifesto on better collaboration between the
locally and built into the existing systems. External data
functions and the wider partner network. Towards serving
is harder to access because by its very nature requires
the customer better, making the most of data together, and
collection from external sources. Structured and unstructured
moving along on their digital roadmap…together!
data vary in their ease of integration. Structured data is
easiest to integrate because it is clean and is organized in
a way that can be easily matched to internal data sources.
Unstructured data, on the other hand, poses a challenge
to integrate. Examples of this challenging unstructured
data include text-based data, such as meeting notes or
commercial agreements, that cannot be systematically
exploited as such in a software.

16 17
 Traditionally speaking, spend analytics was performed with
internal structured data sources, such as transactional data
Dimensions of procurement data on ERPs and financial systems. As technological capabilities
& their ease of access and integration have increased, spend analytics has evolved to include many
other sources of data to get the most strategic view possible.
Harder This requires capabilities in the automized integration of
to access
external data. For instance, combining market forecasts
External structured External unstructured with cost structures enables running different scenarios that
1
Supplier specific Commodity market
account for commodity changes. As global markets become
sustainability scores outlook report more volatile, the most advanced procurement organizations
are looking to improve their ability to access and integrate all
types of procurement data.

Internal structured Internal unstructured

Internal structured data is the core foundation of
Vendor master data Purchase agreement procurement data. It is stored and created within the
existing corporate software. It is easy to access and is
Easier
to access already completely integrated into the systems. The clearest
example of this is vendor master data, which includes basic
information about the vendor, such as their contact details
Easier to integrate Harder to integrate and transaction history.

Internal unstructured data is the data within the

The way procurement leverages data has become more
complex over time. While traditional procurement was
largely fixated on internal structured data, modern agile
procurement has incorporated a wider array of data:
structured, unstructured, internal, and external. The case in
point is the evolution of spend analytics. Spend analytics
focuses on bringing more visibility to spend from various
perspectives.
procurement organization, which is stored and generated
locally, but is not that easy to integrate. An example of this
is purchase agreements and meeting minutes. While they
are stored locally and are accessible, they can vary greatly in
their unstructured content, making their classification harder.
They may exist in many versions and places, be in different
file formats, and are overall hard to analyze without human
oversight.

18 19
External structured data is procurement data that comes
from outside the organization’s own databases. It can come
from many external sources but is usually purchased from
third party data providers. A good example of this type of
data is supplier specific sustainability scores. While this data
has some barriers to access, it is designed to be easy to
integrate for procurement needs.
External unstructured data is the most challenging type of
procurement data, both to access and integrate. It comes
from a variety of external sources and not all of them are
designed especially for procurement-specific use cases. This
type of data is very useful for analytics and forecasting, such
as with commodity market outlook reports, but requires a lot
of work to integrate with existing internal data.
As the technological capabilities for procurement data and
analytics increase, modern procurement organizations can
make use of these four types of data. The abilities to both
access and integrate data from many different sources is
leading to a new level of data-based decision making for
procurement.
Why does procurement
need data and analytics?
As the world becomes more data-driven, organizations rely
on hard numbers to justify a decision or drive a strategy.
Everyone is doing it. At the heart of the data transformation in
procurement is analytics. Analytics has enabled procurement
20
to shift its focus from cost approvals and reporting into
forward-looking forecasts and influence of enterprise
spend. Procurement analytics is so much more than just a
new toolset for cost management. Unleashing the value
within procurement data can provide strategic insights
for the organization and enable procurement contribution
to direction setting. Procurement can utilize analytics
to describe, predict, or improve business performance.
Analytics touches all activities from strategic sourcing to
category management and procure-to-pay processes. On a
broad level, analytics can fall into four general categories:
Descriptive: What happened in the past?
Diagnostic: Why something happened in the
past?
Predictive: What trends and patterns tell us?
What will happen?
Prescriptive: What decisions procurement
should take?
Traditionally, procurement analytics has focused on
understanding past procurement spend and supplier
performance (descriptive), but increasingly the focus is
shifting towards AI-driven prescriptive decision making
(prescriptive). Over time, the functionality and service
models of spend analysis solutions have evolved to meet
the growing needs of procurement organization’s digital
transformation. When effectively utilized, procurement
analytics can enable data-driven decision making.
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 2. Analytics in strategic sourcing:
From insights to action: In strategic sourcing, analytics helps identify the best times
the four types of analytics and areas to run sourcing events and requests for proposal.
It can identify which suppliers to include in sourcing projects
and provide rich information into supplier’s quality and risk
Prescriptive positions.
“What should
I do?”
Predictive 3. Analytics in contract management:
“What will
Analytics provides value across contract lifecycle
Value to Business

happen?”
Diagnostic management. It can alert when contracts need to be
“Why did it
happen?” renegotiated or provide data for supplier negotiations.
Descriptive Analytics can identify maverick spend to help compliance
“What
happened?” and improve contract coverage. It can help in harnessing
benefits of scale and scope.

Insights Action 4. Analytics in procure-to-pay:

Difficulty to Implement
2 discover rebate opportunities, benefit from currency
Here are some key reasons why procurement loves data and
analytics:
1. Analytics in category management:
Procurement analytics allows category managers to identify
savings opportunities, segment and prioritize suppliers,
address risks, and facilitate innovation. Systematic discovery
of opportunities and risks can be only understood when data
sets previously held in silos can be analyzed together.
Procurement analytics can also provide much value in
the transactional and financial side of procurement. With
analytics, you can measure purchase order cycles and
improve payment terms. You can evaluate payment accuracy,
fluctuations, identify mistaken payment, and reduce fraud.
You can forecast and run scenarios on different commodity
price changes.
5. Analytics in sustainability and corporate responsibility:
Analytics can aid in assessing sustainability and corporate
social responsibility within the supply chain and
procurement. Analytics can uncover the environmental
or social impact of procurement decisions and identify
opportunities for more sustainable alternatives and
improvement.

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6. Analytics in risk management:
Analytics can aide in identifying and mitigating risk within
the supply chain and procurement. Analytics can unravel
the complex relationships between supply, price, the
environment, CSR initiatives, and risk, while identifying
opportunities for mitigation.
7. Analytics in performance measurement:
Procurement analytics is classically used to identify savings
realized, which is directly relevant for profit and loss (P&L)
reporting for finance.
Analytics in procurement touches all steps of the source-
to-pay process, and over the decades has transformed
from descriptive reporting cycles to insightful strategic
opportunities. But procurement has a lot of data to sort and
make sense out of before they can reap the full benefits of
actionable analytics.
Digital transformation in
procurement
Digital transformation in procurement relates to the new
applications and automation of procurement processes
that increases the efficiency, compliance, and value of the
function. Algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), robotic
process automation (RPA), and machine learning (ML) are all
3
emerging in their procurement applications . But it isn’t just
new tools and diverse types of data that are driving digital
4
procurement. Accenture reports that underlying shifts in the
skills and talents required for procurement, the improvements
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in intuitive user experience across enterprise software, and
the way policies and procedures guide operating models
are also factors. Together, these trends are updating and
rejuvenating procurement. Because of the wide demand for
analyzing and managing spend, a broad field of solutions has
emerged to cater to different needs and maturity levels. One
area where procurement technology has developed through
clear stages of evolution is procurement analytics.
Example of digital transformation – evolution of analytics in
procurement
Generation 1 (1990 – ): Analysis done in Microsoft Excel by
consultants or business analysts largely focused on past
spend analysis.
Generation 2 (2000 – ): Desktop spend analysis software
bought under license with data hosted on-premises or within
the company firewall.
Generation 3 (2010 – ): Browser-based spend analytics
dashboards providing business intelligence level
visualizations and usability, licensed or bought as Software-
as-a-Service. These dashboards offered drill-down
capabilities to get more insightful looks at data.
Generation 4 (2015 – ): AI-powered, automated procurement
analytics solutions combining many data sources, encrypted
and hosted on the cloud, and bought as Software-as-a-
Service. These solutions offer alert-up notifications as well
as drill-down capabilities which improve procurement’s
vigilance and reactiveness.
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Different generations of procurement analytics solutions still
co-exist to meet the needs of different business domains.
Some organizations retain their Excel-based reporting,
while others may continue using self-built or configured
5
business intelligence solutions long into the new decade .
Some procurement organizations can skip entire generations
through the process of digitization if the procurement
leadership has a clear mandate to drive data-driven
transformation.
Software innovation as an
enabler for transformation
Rapid software innovation over the past decades
has enabled previously unimaginable capabilities for
procurement. Through data-driven insights powered by
automation, decision making has become more agile. Now,
identifying improvement opportunities and optimizing spend
is more achievable, transparent, and actionable. For example,
procurement analytics has revolutionized how tail end spend
can be managed. In the past, these low value vendors were
given focus only when you had extra time (which there
never is in procurement). Programs like negotiation bots
can automate routine contracts with tail spend vendors,
leaving more time to be invested in building relationships.
The contracting process has evolved from printed contracts
with manual revisions to digitalized and automated services
enabled by AI. These services include machine reading
of contracts and intelligent clause libraries. Instead of
spending time with operative taks and manual reporting, the
automation and difitalization of procurement have enabled
26
more time for strategic initiatives and collaboration.
As procurement continues its digital transformation, the
need to align with IT becomes more apparent. There are
many new data sources, services, and tools in procurement
that will impact IT’s internal data management as well as the
organization’s wider IT strategy and architecture. Proactive
collaboration between CPOs and CIOs is a must. Some of the
aspects to consider in this era of digital transformation for
procurement are:
Information security and data privacy (GDPR)
compliance. With the procurement landscape
rapidly becoming a pick and mix marketplace,
staying compliant is more complex.
Data architecture. Unfortunately, most
procurement functions still can’t see the full
data architecture picture. This is especially hard
during massive data renovation projects like
building a data lake. CPOs need to make sure
new procurement systems support the wider
data strategy.
Solution building or buying. Even with the
plethora of new solutions for procurement,
CPOs and CIOs must be aligned on budget,
expectations, and needs when choosing to build
or buy (more on that in Chapter 3).
The way data is leveraged, processed, and shared in
procurement is fundamentally changing. But a lot of
27
organizations are hesitant to welcome digital transformation
because of the belief that procurement data isn’t “clean”
enough to be worth the effort. Typically, the IT function can
most clearly see the flaws in the data due to their close
experience with it. While a CPO may be clamoring for digital
transformation, IT probably has nightmares about messy
master data across multiple ERPs and purchase systems. If
a CIO is simultaneously issuing their own data warehousing
project while a CPO is aiming to complete a new spend
analysis initiative, they may disagree on priorities. While the
CIO will believe the back end must be sorted out before
analysis, the CPO will be eager for actionable insights. The
fact is that data will never be perfect. In Finnish, there is a
saying “rapatessa roiskuu,” which translates into “you can’t
avoid splashes when painting”. The same applies to working
with data. Instead of fixating on the tiny splashes, the focus
should be on the process of mining value out of this vast
mass of data (this argument is explained fully in Chapter 2).
Automation isn’t everything
Machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, has
the most immediate application to procurement. For
procurement, machine learning is the application of self-
learning automated statistics to solve defined challenges or
6
improve operational efficiency . While high-level automation
is often portrayed as the end of the digital journey—a future
where everything is automated, and robots do our jobs—it
won’t take over everything. For example, algorithms could
write your supplier emails for you and suggest when to send
them based on changes in risk ratings or spend trends. But
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it won’t shake hands or give a pat on the back for a job well-
done on your behalf. We should spend more time talking to
each other and build more systems of engagement. Systems
of engagement could also support us in our daily business
and future planning. To put it simply, the way automation
will impact procurement is by freeing up more time for
systems of engagement. As the world is getting faster and
more complex, data needs to be hyper relevant to cater
to dynamic business needs. Resilience and agility mean
that data must be as up to date as possible. Manual data
processing may work on a monthly reporting cycle but is
not agile enough to be super aware in the modern world.
Instead of monthly refreshes, agility today means weekly
or daily updates to be on top of changes in the market.
Obviously, this level of data refresh cannot be maintained
through manual processes, therefore, automated systems
are the only way to be agile cost effectively and create high
frequency situational awareness. Automation will take over
the long tail of straightforward action points that consume
too much of procurement professionals’ time now, or are not
addressed at all, as there’s no business case for doing so.
The promise of automation is reducing the amount of time
spent on repetitive, low-value decisions. Automation, aided
by ML, will take over those decisions and actions. Humans
are still valued for complex decisions in unique settings and
their ability to create relationships with other human beings.
With increased automation, there is more time reserved for
meaningful interactions. Automation reduces bottlenecks and
enables handling routine decision making faster, freeing up
time for leadership and strategic thinking.
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The new data paradigm
In the past, procurement analysts have been limited
in their ability to utilize external data sources. Cloud-
based procurement analytics software and application
programming interfaces (APIs) have enabled more automated
and flexible uses of external procurement data. As the
procurement software landscape evolves and builds upon
full-suite providers, best-of-breeds and many specialized
service providers give procurement access to better tools
for source-to-pay activities, collaboration, integration, and
innovation .
7
Collaboration in procurement relates to connecting
the enterprise with the external world through supplier
relationships and dialogue with the wider network of
partners and stakeholders. Collaboration has an internal
extension as well, as it relates to the way in which previously
siloed activities and processes can better communicate
and synergize. Through the mix-and-match approach to
building a procurement data ecosystem, piecing together
solutions provides new flexibility in procurement. More agile
procurement means reaching insights and decisions faster
with a wide array of information sources, including external
data.
Integration means the act of connecting different things or
people that were formerly separated. In the procurement
context, connecting data from various sources is made
30
possible by new analytics solutions and external data
providers. The enterprises that master combining external
and internal data will enjoy great strategic advantage.
Procurement is in the unique position to facilitate higher
levels of integration between internal and external
organizations.
Innovation in procurement is moving at lightning-fast speeds.
Smaller niche start-ups are filling the gaps in areas where
single-suite providers can’t develop fast enough. They
are also innovating in areas like user experience, where
procurement software has traditionally been behind the
market. These best-of-breed, cloud-based solutions are
making the democratization of data possible—where data is
accessible and understandable for all (the subject of Chapter
5). This innovation is also changing the skill requirements of
procurement. Analytical thinking, complex problem solving,
and critical analysis are skills no longer limited to data
8
scientists .
Most organizations suffer from data myopia. With data
myopia, one becomes obsessed with their internal systems,
data, and processes. In IT departments, this myopia goes
hand in hand with the job. After all it is their responsibility to
care for and maintain the whole organization’s internal data.
But unfortunately, IT very rarely gets to see the benefits of
external data.
Procurement does not always understand how privileged
they are in terms of the data they have at hand. Procurement
should not only be seen as a driver of cost savings or
governing body, but the connection to the external data
31
world. Through transaction data, procurement can connect
the company’s internal data with external data. Hence,
procurement’s real value is connecting the company to
the external data ecosystem (explained in Chapter 4).
Procurement is well-positioned to communicate strategic
external data to the organization in a relevant way.

Procurement is one touchpoint to external data, but

it is bigger than that. To truly defeat data myopia, the
organization must synergize with and learn from partner
networks. Innovations are combinations of pre-existing
elements that do more than the sum of their parts. The
same applies to data insights and analytics. Discoveries and
transformation are made when existing data is combined
in unique ways and environments. The key to unlocking
digital transformation is tapping into the external data
ecosystem with procurement. The next chapter will cover the
practicalities of data management in procurement.

32 33
 CHAPTER 2

Why data
management for
procurement is
hard

34 35

“
Change is the essential
process of all existence.”
- Spock, Star Trek (1969),
season 3, episode 15
36
D
ata is more available than ever before. As a side-effect
of exponential gains in storage and bandwidth, almost
everything carries a data trace. Even online video
meetings can be considered a form of data. Data is messy,
and its everywhere. In addition to the vast amount of internal
data collected within an enterprise, many external data
services have emerged in the past decades. These external
data sets have been made readily accessible through
the internet, APIs, and specialized data providers. These
data providers focus on packaging ready-to-use data, like
diversity, risk, and sustainability data. In the past, acquiring
relevant data was hard and expensive. Thus, data was limited
to only the most pertinent information. Copying data used
to be time consuming and expensive, now it can be done
within minutes. Data storage, as well, has also become more
affordable than ever and is practically infinite.
Acquiring and accessing data has never been this easy. But
finding meaning in that data is the hard part. This chapter will
focus on the challenges of gaining value from procurement
data by focusing on the most practiced method of
procurement analytics: spend analytics. Spend analytics
is the art behind spend data management. It includes the
processes of collecting, cleansing, classifying, consolidating,
and merging internal and external data with all the relevant
tools in order to do an analysis.
37
Common challenges of
procurement data analytics
Analytics in procurement can provide visibility in decision
making and offer greater precision. From forecasting
consumption patterns to inbound logistics, applying analytics
drives sustainable procurement value in the long term,
streamlines purchasing operations, and refines procurement
strategies and processes. Unfortunately, many organizations
fail in delivering the value that was expected initially. Here are
9
some reasons why procurement data analytics can fail :
1. Poor data quality/dirty data: The most common pitfall
of procurement data is the quality of the data. Usually, this
boils down to basic hygiene errors like empty data fields
and spelling errors that affect the quality of analysis. Spend
data classification, for instance, requires detailed information
that is often unstructured across business systems. Errors
and discrepancies in critical data fields like supplier names,
product attributes, or account codes can impact analysis.
This is not to say that data must be perfect, but it must be
on an adequate level. Remember, “you can’t avoid splashes
when painting”.
2. Complex and labor-intensive cleansing and classification
processes: Classification and cleansing of data is a huge
undertaking. Cleansing is about detecting inaccuracies
and removing corrupt records and redundancies from a set
of data. Classification is the act of analyzing structured or
unstructured data and organizing it into categories based
38
on content, type, and other metadata. Human labor alone
cannot keep up with the new incoming data and will easily
cause data classifications to become outdated. Robust,
automated process are needed to make data useful.
3. Leaders without data-driven mindsets: Failure of this
sort is caused by the lack of continuous involvement and
sponsorship of analytics activities from business leaders.
Leaders with suboptimal digital competence and lack of
passion can hinder progress.
4.Unrealistic expectations, unclear goals, and misplaced
priorities: When organizations rush to analysis without a
clear plan or from too wide of a scope, they will fail to see
insights and may become overwhelmed. Starting small with
immediate, disciplined, and regular feedback loops is a must.
5.Using the wrong tools or not knowing which ones to use:
Choosing the right tools is the first critical step in developing
procurement data analytics. It requires a clear understanding
of the needs and use cases of the organization and an honest
account of the pros and cons (See Chapter 3 for a full list of
considerations when choosing a solution).
6. Limited analytical capabilities: Sometimes, the tools
at hand won’t address different maturity levels when it
comes to analytical capabilities. Using basic spreadsheet
applications or BI systems can’t unlock the full potential of
procurement data if your team is not built up of seasoned
data analysts. If the organization wants a real return on
investment from procurement data analytics, there must be
an intuitive solution with suitable technical capabilities that
39
meet the needs of procurement and cater varying levels of
competence (more on user requirements and how to ensure A cherry on top: the
adoption in Chapter 3). challenge of data
7. Lack of skills and user competence: Deep product and
combination
domain knowledge is a must for efforts in procurement data
Along with the above-mentioned challenges of general
analytics. Along the whole process, the right expertise needs
procurement data analytics, spend analytics has another
to be matched with specialization. When category teams
cherry on top requiring additional focus: the challenge of
and end users are not involved in the analytics planning, for
data combination. This relates to the meaningful combination
example, critical information may be lost.
of internal data sets with each other, as well the combination
of internal and external data.
8. Fear of losing relevance or control of data: When data
owners are asked to let go and share their data, there may
Consider the challenges that occur when you want to enrich
be a little apprehension. Siloed data, though, is a big inhibiter
your spend data with external data. Different data sets are
to productivity and a waste of resources (covered in full in
provided in different format and context. Risk information is
Chapter 5).
often supplier specific; market price forecasts are commodity
specific; and corruption and social risk metrics will be region
9. Procurement data analysis as a one-time effort: Finally,
specific. Depending on the department, each function may
procurement data analytics should be a long-term process
want to transform the external data to their own context.
and part of the total procurement transformation. Without
A category manager needs relevant data for a category
repeated analysis, procurement data analytics doesn’t offer
containing several suppliers, while a supplier relationship
the same value.
manager needs data relating to one supplier. Information
alone is not enough, however, as it needs to be provided in a
These common pitfalls are seen time and time again when
relevant context.
organizations begin their procurement data analytics
journey. Most of the time, these challenges are faced simply
Most organizations will struggle to incorporate external
when working with internal procurement data. Therefore,
data. It’s an uphill battle keeping internal data in order, so
integrating external data in a way that makes sense isn’t as
combining external data to this equation can become very
easy as it seems.
messy. Even though source system consolidation (whether
ERP-based or procurement suite-based) may reduce the
number of data sources at one end, the proliferation of new

40 41
solutions and data sources imply that there will be new
10
data combination challenges ahead . This requires three
complementary capabilities: the collection of internal data,
enrichment with external data, and the power to cleanse and
combine this data in an advanced analytics engine.
The capabilities required
for leveraging procurement data
When facing down the challenge of data combination and
vendor matching, there is one secret weapon that live in the
procurement function: transaction data. Transaction data is
the internal structured data that the organization maintains
which shows the full purchase history with a vendor. It holds
a lot of information: the name (or names) of the supplier,
the items bought, the categories of those items, the region,
time of purchase, and much more. Therefore, the transaction
data can provide linkages to many other data sets. Since

1 transaction data holds information about vendors, categories,

and items, it is the glue that brings spend analytics together.
Collect By the same token, it can be transformed to link together
internal data Enterprise resource planning
Advanced systems, Source-to-pay
various internal and external data sets.
Analytics solutions, procurement software

Engine Spend analytics competencies live in the procurement

3 Cleanse Enrich with function. However, most organizations do not realize the
Private company data,
& combine external data credit ratings, risk ratings, value of their transaction data. When it comes to scoping
ESG and diversity data,
commodity price indexes
what kind of analytics solutions are acquired, procurement
data is often left aside because it gets a bad rap for being

2 “unsexy.” Most organizations don’t realize the value of the

transaction data they have at hand.

One way to make use of external procurement data is

through vendor matching. Vendor matching is the activity of
matching vendor names or codes from one data set with that
of another. It is the mandatory evil in connecting your internal
data with external data sources or with supplier specific
information. Any external data that is supplier specific
probably won’t match directly with the internal supplier
taxonomy. Vendor matching requires a robust method to
cleanse the data and then marry the datasets together.
The fallacy of perfect data
Poor data quality was mentioned earlier as one of the
common reasons why procurement data analytics fails. While
this may be true, the biggest reason stopping organizations
from realizing the potential of their transaction data is the
belief that it needs to be “perfect” first. At Sievo, we’ve
partnered with hundreds of enterprise businesses over the
past two decades. We’ve never come across a business with

42 43
perfect data, but we’ve also never come across a business
with data so messy we couldn’t help. The most touted
metaphor regarding analytics is “garbage in, garbage out.”
This assumes that bad quality inputs inevitably lead to bad
quality outputs. It is based on the belief that if your master
data is not in shape, it’s impossible to get valuable insights.
If you ask Sievo, this is the worst metaphor ever, and here’s
why:
Some data is better than no data. Analytics systems are
usually designed and used by people with the bookkeeper
mindset. For them, the expectation is that any data less
than 99.9% accurate is unusable. While this may be true
for financial instruments using super-advanced math, it’s
not exactly the same for spend analytics. Most vendor
matching, for example, only reaches somewhere around 95%
accuracy—and that is perfectly fine. Human oversight is the
mechanism that makes spend analytics still worthwhile, even
with less than perfect data.
Analytics is for better decisions (not for perfect ones).
Closing the insights-to-action gap can be powered by
analytics, but it’s not the only way. With all the AI hype, it’s
easy to forget how meetings, relationships, brainstorming,
and creativity play a part in business decision making. The
true value of these technologies isn’t thinking for us, it’s
aiding us to make better decisions by providing valuable
inputs.
Data processing is like mining. Think of data analytics like
a mining company. In the mining process, tons of rocks are
dug up to get to a very tiny bit of ore. That ore is processed
44
and refined until a metal is produced. Miners dig lots of
different materials, get rid of stuff they don’t need, and enrich
and refine until they get something valuable. Procurement
analytics should be thought of the same way. It digs up dirty
data with known value, puts a robust process in place for
11
enriching and refining it, and finds the precious stuff .
Perfect master data and IT architecture is an illusion.
Believing that meaningful insights from analytics requires
implementing drastic changes to the current IT system
landscape is the path to the dark side. New global ERP,
purchasing system initiatives, master data harmonization
projects, or corporate data warehouse endeavors are awfully
time consuming and tedious projects. Often, they exceed
budgets and schedules while delivering much less value than
12
expected .
Change is inevitable. Even if you would have a “perfect”
back-end system set-up for your procurement, you will still
need analysis tools. Your business will change faster than
these back-end systems can. Your analytics must adapt faster
than your back-end systems. Your procurement organization
and category structures will change, or your company may
acquire new businesses. What was correct then may not be
correct now when the business environment changes. The
right analysis tools adapt to your changing business needs
and are not cemented in IT politics rooted in heavy corporate
back-end systems.
Good luck cleansing the internet. Since so much of the
valuable external data is produced and shared through the
internet, you’re never going to stop the influx of dirty data.
45
The same applies to third party data. A fear of “messing
things up” is usually what prevents people from seeing the
value of this data and putting it to use.
Perfect data is too expensive. The real cost of maintaining
perfect data would be astronomically expensive, even with
endless time at your disposal. Put your money where there is
honey instead.
Working with imperfect data requires trust. Modern
business requires a lot of high risk, quick decisions. Seeing
as perfect data isn’t feasible, it’s up to organizations to start
promoting more trust in their people. “Garbage in, garbage
out” implies that decision making is impossible without
perfect data and discounts the abilities of people in the
organization. The world is getting more complex and harder
to predict.
With the right tools and capabilities, analytics projects
can bring a lot of value even if the source data is less than
perfect. It can provide a fact-based understanding of the
data quality and granularity. These insights mean a head-start
on improving processes. Furthermore, initial spend analytics
results should be good enough to prove the value of spend
analytics and to engage users. The results don’t need to be
perfect, but they need to be good. Achieving this requires
good tools as well as the right people.
The more data is used, the better it becomes. More users of
the data mean more errors spotted. Only through use of the
data can imperfections be revealed. But this also requires
feedback loops that result in the data being corrected. If
46
there are feedback loops and mechanisms to correct the
data, the data will improve, and users will be more satisfied
seeing the impact of their efforts. This data correction
feedback loop should take minutes, hours, or at max days
to make sense for users to give feedback. This leads to a
positive cycle. Users start to pay attention to data quality
in source systems where it did not really matter that much
before. They want to introduce process improvements
to create more granular data. The organization must be
prepared to address these initiatives. While it can’t be
said that all users know best, together they know more
than just one person can. Data must be surfaced with all
its imperfections. There is never a point where data will be
perfect. It will only improve through use.
Procurement loves it’s
data, but what’s in it for the
organization?
Relatively few companies are succeeding on their own
without the support of a wider network of third-party
partners. The IT function is increasingly working side-by-
side with solution providers and vendors, as opposed
to developing everything in-house. The role of IT is
essentially turning into a partner management function as
they lead multiple vendors who cater to specific needs
and development pipelines. Similar developments are
happening in other business areas as well: marketing is
outsourcing creative campaigns and conversion optimization
to specialized agencies, logistics has outsourced customs
47
handling and transportation, and finance is outsourcing its
payroll services. Hence, vendors account for a major share
of quality, customer experience, product development, risk
mitigation, and sustainability.
Identifying
To get the best outcome from these partnerships, it is changes
in spend
important to manage external companies with the same Improving Negotiating
interest and care as internal teams and activities. Therefore, prioritization better contracts
all these functions, from marketing to finance, may consider and strategic
focus
utilizing procurement data in their external resource
management due to its broad range of insights. They can
benefit from procurement data in their external resource
management, strategy planning, and business development.
There is a wide array of opportunities in procurement Improving
analytics for the organization. These are some ways the Gaining insights forecasting
into quality and and budget
whole organization can benefit from leveraging procurement
performance
data analytics with external data:
Improving
Improving forecasting and budget management. risk and disruption
coverage

Improving risk mitigation and disruption

Focusing on procurement data and improving it will pay
management.
off through timely and valuable insights that can widen the
horizon of opportunities for the whole organization. Leading
Gaining insights into quality management and
enterprises have realized this and are now turning their
performance development.
focus to procurement and supply chains. There has been a
huge level of investment in supply chain-related software.
Benchmarking performance on category, unit,
According to Research and Markets, the procurement
and country level.
software market is forecasted to grow 10.2% (CAGR)
13
between 2020 and 2025 . What has emerged is many
Discovering opportunities for consolidation,
advanced services that are highly specialized. Meanwhile,
prioritization, and focus.
data providers have come onto the scene with global
data that is ripe and relevant for strategic use. Transaction

48 49
data and procurement analytics are the keys to linking this
external data with the internal data of the organization. When  
accepting that perfect data is an illusion, better systems of
engagement and actionable insights can be supported by
analytics.

It takes two to wrangle data

Procurement data management is hard. Whatever outcomes
or solutions procurement strives for, they must be aligned
with the IT team’s strategies for “wrangling” data throughout
the organization. Even though they may be wrangling
different types of data, they need to build the pasture
together. The IT department has traditionally nurtured internal
data sets only, so that’s what they know best. Procurement,
on the other hand, has the best experience with external
data. Procurement and IT must work together to establish the
merger of these data sets. One can’t do it without the other. It
will take the expertise of both IT and Procurement to establish
architectures and processes for a connected data ecosystem.

Sometimes, that means implementing a procurement

analytics solution. Sometimes, it means building APIs or
customizing existing dashboards. The path, though, is as
unique as the enterprise. It must consider business needs,
maturity, legacy systems, and architecture among other
things. Procurement and IT must join forces to build or buy
the best fit tools that their users will love. The decision to
build or buy is a classic IT conundrum that especially applies
to analytics. The next chapter will walk through all the
considerations to think about before going either way.

50 51
 CHAPTER 3

Build or Buy

52 53
 W
hen it comes to procurement analytics, or any
other enterprise software for that matter, the
question of whether to build it yourself or buy it
from an external service provider has been a long-standing
debate. Even though this is an age-old topic, its specific
application to the procurement analytics context is less
talked about. Any CIO or IT professional worth their salt have
thought long and hard about this decision before. Based
on our two decades of experience hearing both sides of

“
the story, there is still some room for improving the overall
understanding of what to consider when building or buying
analytics solutions. Certain cost elements may come as a
surprise for an organization along the way. Organizations
may not have taken all elements into account in the initial
Do. Or do not. There is no budgeting equation. To avoid hiccups like this (and to ensure

try.” fast and well-adopted product to market), we’ve compiled

- Yoda, Star Wars:
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
a full list of considerations. The decision to go one way or
another depends on the priorities of the specific company.
The trend has been shifting more towards using external
providers, but it depends heavily on the business objectives
of the specific company, its size and resources, and wider IT
strategy.

We define these two strategies as follows:

The “Build” Solution: An in-house managed, custom-built

solution for one organization or business unit. Sometimes
completed with the help of subcontractors, the operators
remain internal.

The “Buy” Solution: An externally sourced, ready-made

solution from a proprietary software vendor. The final product

54 55
for users will largely be the same across organizations, with In this chapter, total cost of ownership will be broken down
variations in applications and modules, based on industry or into three main themes:
customer needs.
Acquisition and development cost: the costs
Total cost of ownership related to the acquisition, maintenance, and
development of a software solution, as well as
There are many considerations in build or buy. Company may their inherent opportunity costs.
prefer the build option because of a desire for better control
and to address their specific needs and level of complexity. User-experience and functionality: the costs
The existing system landscape and data strategy plays a related to the training, onboarding, and support
big part. Often, building in-house is seen as the only way to of users and the impact on productivity.
fulfil these needs. The resources needed to build, though,
are substantial and require domain specific competencies. Data management and quality: the costs related
Meanwhile, buying a software solution can itself be a time- to the long-term management of data, including
consuming and expensive process which still might not data architecture, data quality, and data security.
satisfy what users were hoping to achieve. Software sourcing
competence is a valuable, but often underdeveloped, skill.
Whether building or buying, the TCO assessment must
There are multiple factors to consider on this topic. This
consider all these themes. Under each theme, we will
chapter will address the major considerations of the build
suggest various factors to consider and compare their impact
or buy debate specifically regarding procurement analytics
on TCO from the build and buy perspective. Although these
solutions and underlying cost elements. The primary
factors are specifically geared towards procurement analytics
consideration should be Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
14 solutions, they are transmissible to most analytics solutions.
According to the Gartner Information Technology Glossary ,
After the extensive list of factors, we’ve included advice
TCO is:
on how to select a vendor partner and keys to success for
implementation and adoption. Finally, we’ve provided our
“A comprehensive assessment of information technology
personal thoughts on the paradoxical arguments of building
(IT) or other costs across enterprise boundaries over time.
analytics solutions.
For IT, TCO includes hardware and software acquisition,
management and support, communications, end-user
expenses and the opportunity cost of downtime, training and
other productivity losses.”

56 57
Build or buy considerations Review of the themes and factors related to
TCO for build or buy analytics
Here, you’ll find both the short and long list of TCO
considerations when choosing to build or buy. If you want to Acquisition and User experience Data management
skim through the short list, refer the summary of themes and Development and functionality
Costs and Quality
factors below. If you’d like an in-depth break down of each
consideration from both the build and buy perspectives, then
continue reading on!

58 59
Acquisition and
development costs
Factor Build option
With building, there are no
sourcing costs. Market
benchmarking and
Sourcing development will generate
cost most costs. The same
stakeholders are involved
in all steps.
Internal development may
lead to surprising cost
elements that have budget
impact along the way.
Cost Estimating the cost of
transparency
building a solution can be
extremely complex. Time,
talent, and resources are a
lot harder to measure than
a sticker price.
Building your own
solution ties your
resources for a long
period of time. These
resources could be used
Opportunity for alternative
cost development, hence
there is an opportunity
cost.
60
Buy option
cleansing
enrichment
With buying, the
opportunity costs are less
severe. The most time
intensive step will be vendor
selection and
Maintenance
implementation. By testing
the solution through a proof
of concept (POC), seeing
the solution in action can
minimize the opportunity
costs because it can also be
used as a starting point for
the full implementation.
Factor Build option Buy option
Procurement analytics Vendors typically take care of
requires monthly/weekly the input data cleansing.
data cleansing, which Vendor matching is a service
Data affects the long-term time often included in a bought
investment unless you can procurement analytics
costs implement a robust solution. It is handled by
automation process. procurement data experts
Vendors must be matched who have experience in
across many data sets. multiple industries.
Outsourcing this activity
can be a huge cost, and
doing it in-house is a
continuous effort. When
the service is priced per
vendor, costs can escalate
quickly and leave out tail
spend.
There may be cost
involved in accessing
external data. It is very
costly to build external
Data
data connectivity that is
costs responsive. Also, built data
storage or data
architecture may limit the
feasibility of this
connectivity.
The infrastructure costs of
servers or cloud providers
must be accounted for
costs internally. This requires a
dedicated solution owner,
and continuous
maintenance eats up
resources.
61
 Factor
User experience and
Build option Buy option

With the rate of change of

technology, a software
must be continuously
updated. This will also
include keeping up to date
with market
developments. It will be
Development challenging to consider all
costs
the needs of the
organization and prioritize
and justify decisions.
Development efforts are
included in the price of a
vendor. The vendor will have
visibility on multiple industries
and use cases, customer
feedback, with dedicated
product development teams
that follow market and future
technologies. This also
includes better access to
innovation. Vendors also work
with partners and have access
to their data and networks.
The vendor serves multiple
clients with their varying ideas
and problems.
functionality
Factor Build option
It’s very easy to lose track
of development, and under
or over scope the project.
A substantial software
Time to build can take years till
market
use. Your stakeholders
needed it yesterday.
Buy option
Even considering customizations and
implementation, buying pre-built
software is a much faster journey from
purchase to results. So much of the leg
work is already done, and again,
economies of scale make it so that
implementation is meant to be as
smooth as possible. Surely the
stakeholders will be eager to harness
the value of the data as soon as
possible.

From the vendor’s standpoint,

they want to offer new
features and be synergistic
with other software in the
market. Scaling the solution
can be as easy as buying more Control of
functionalities. This includes customization
Feature scaling with technologies like
scalability
AI. However, as a customer
you may be tied to the
vendor’s development
roadmap and integrations.
This could imply needing to
adjust your own infrastructure
to make the most of the
platform’s capabilities.
When building a solution, Because there are many users of the
it must be someone’s software, there will be many more
Software developers creating responsibility to collect resources for training and support for
a highly specialized solution in feedback, provide the solution owner/ super-user.
the market will inherently have trainings, re-training in Vendors spend a lot of time
more expertise in the domain. Training the case of updates, and developing training resources for
Capabilities This ensures that the & support overall ensure the solution owners (and with more
functionality and user successful use of the experience from the client network
experience of the solution will software. This will require perspective). This means that
be a main priority and backed robust processes of adoption rates will be higher.
up by lots of experience with communication and
users and clients. documentation.

62 63
 Factor Build option Buy option Data management
and quality
Vendors have a service level
agreement (SLA) in place with Factor Build option Buy option
KPIs and pre-agreed escalation
Service processes. Customer satisfaction
level
is a priority to them, not just an With a built solution, the Vendors have tested their
additional ticket in the queue. element of data security is infrastructure and their other
completely in your hands. customers have similar concerns, so it
This includes hiring needs to be bullet proof. With cloud
cybersecurity expert providers, data security is usually a
Data security/ keeping up to date with core part of their service. There are
data privacy your region/industry’s also third parties that can test the
In building a solution, you The vendor can be a partner in evolving security infrastructure of the security. Some
are generally on your own. development. A good vendor will requirements and vendors will offer data security and
The solution is tailor made listen to your ideas, as well as regulatory standards. privacy covering everything from
and will not be shared ideas form the market, and work GDPR-S to HIPAA, meaning you won’t
Partnership outside of the towards improving the solution need to hire your own cybersecurity
organization, limiting the for its clients. experts to keep up with the complexity
feedback and of regulations.
development.
There may be concerns or When buying a solution, there is less
regulations regarding choice in the location of the data
which region or country storage. Therefore, it depends
the data is stored in. With completely on your data strategy. Data
A pre-built solution may Bought solutions are highly a build option, you have privacy regulation is an important
Scalability have limitations in terms scalable with a growing user Data complete control over the aspect, concerning for instance, which
of users base. location data is hosted in EU, and what are the
of a growing user base. data location, if this is an
issue. Legacy strategies safeguards if it leaves.
may still apply to sensitive
information, but average
companies are moving
towards cloud trend.

When building a solution, Because there are many users of the

it must be someone’s
responsibility to collect
feedback, provide
trainings, re-training in
Data the case of updates, and
architecture overall ensure the
successful use of the
software. This will require
robust processes of
communication and
documentation.
software, there will be many more
resources for training and support for
the solution owner/ super-user.
Vendors spend a lot of time
developing training resources for
solution owners (and with more
experience from the client network
perspective). This means that
adoption rates will be higher.

64 65
 Factor Build option Buy option Invest time in drafting specifications and user
requirements. IT sourcing shouldn’t just be
Whether building or about features or price. It must consider the
buying, the data quality
must remain good—it is users first and for most, and how their needs will
the pre-requirement for be met.
users to gain value form
Data quality the solution. For a built
solution, this requires well
thought out Don’t forget about user experience (UX).
responsibilities and
processes. A super user
UX will directly impact adoption. It should be
who answers questions as close to a consumer-grade experience as
and is accountable for
ensuring data quality is possible. Consider your specific operating
needed.
environment and how you want to manage
users. A good vendor should help with training

Partner selection: best materials, support, accounts, and access rights.

practices Consider a Proof of Concept (POC). A POC is

At the end of the day, each procurement organization must
find their own way to evaluate and choose new software
partners. There is no one size fits all process to finding the
right partner, but these 15 common best practices can help
in the process:
Involve key stakeholders early. Increasingly,
procurement analytics has benefits for different
stakeholders outside of procurement, from
corporate risk management to financial and
strategic planning and corporate sustainability. If
alignment with other departments like Finance,
IT, and legal is important, include them early in
the evaluation process.
a project to launch a scaled down test run of
a solution before purchase. An RFP (request
for proposal) alone is not fit for assessing
competencies and the solution fit in your
business environment.
Exploit networks and partnerships. Think long
term about how a vendor partner can provide
access to new data sets and provide the benefits
of scale. Consider the partner network as a
strategic asset.
Exploit relevant expertise. While each
procurement analytics case is unique, specialised
analytics vendors will have years of experience
to share from similar customer or industry cases.
Check for relevant customer references and

66 67
 look for a vendor that can guide you to the right
solution.
Pay close attention to the implementation
timeline. One of the best traits of buying a
solution vs. building it yourself is the speed of
implementation. For a procurement analytics
solution, implementation speed is a huge asset
due to the existing business case and user need
for the solution. It should take less than a month
before the users start seeing the initial visibility
in their data.
The Service Level Agreement (SLA) is critical.
Selecting the right service package and
negotiating on service levels is undeniably
important. It will provide in writing the primary
responsibilities of the vendor and minimum
satisfactory level for the service. With a
procurement analytics solution, pay special
attention to uptime, data refresh and data
cleansing schedule based on the needs of your
company.
Don’t see price as a static number. Be clear on
what is covered and what not, and how much
resource investment is needed from your internal
team. The cost estimation needs to account
for many factors, so it’s best to account for
many factors so it’s best to account to measure
TCO rather than a single fee. Comparing prices
between vendors should address payment
68
terms, billing intervals, and different Service
Level Agreement elements as feasible.
Understand how the solution connects to the
greater whole. Ask yourself how the solution
will connect to your systems, what it requires
in terms of technology and architecture, and
the possibilities of integrating third party data
sources to the platform.
Don’t leave security concerns to the last
minute. Data privacy—where the data is stored
and how it is handled—must be covered as
part of an RFP. This should be discussed first
to ensure that vendors can comply with your
requirements for information security before
moving forward. If a mismatch between how the
vendor stores data and your requirements for it
is noticed late in the process, it will terminate
the possible collaboration and consume time for
both parties involved.
Look for transparency. Effective procurement
leaders need to see the big pictures while
also drill down to details. Analytics solutions
should allow for configurable dashboards while
providing data transparency all the way down to
the transaction level.
Go for actionable insights. Usually, the
evaluation of analytics vendors has focused
primarily on their capabilities in spend
69
 classification and master data management.
These are still important, but data quality should Implementation and
be thought of as an enabler to more strategic adoption: keys for success
insights, not the be all and end all.
Whether choosing to build or buy, successful implementation
Innovation and development potential. Choose
and adoption of the user base should be the biggest
vendors based on how they can support your
concern. If a great software is built but it can’t be successfully
digital transformation strategy. Look out for
implemented in a reasonable time frame or the adoption rate
the vendor’s own innovation roadmap, where
falls short, then the project won’t provide beneficial results.
they are going with the product, their thought
Buying a software is no different.
leadership in the industry, and their vision for
the future. Don’t be swayed by marketing
Implementation relates to the process of making the
alone. Their needs to be real evidence of
product technically available for the organization,
development. Bonus points if the vendor
communicating the launch of the product, mobilizing and
includes their customers as an integral part of
training users, and monitoring the early stages of use. The
the development.
success of implementation begins from the scoping and
planning stage before the solution is put into use to align
Collaboration and partnership. Procurement
with user expectations. Implementation at its core is change
analytics cannot succeed as a one-time exercise.
management. Change takes place because a new solution
It needs to be continuously improved and
introduces new processes and ways of working. Old ways
adapted. The procurement analytics vendor
of working must be “unlearned”, which can be a serious
should be viewed as a strategic partner.
challenge to implementation.
Build your contract so that it leaves room for
development and considers steering of the
One way of successfully implementing change is to assign
relationship.
the role of a “change agent.” A change agent is a person
that roots for change, answers user questions, and solves
resistance in the functions. They can affect everything from
adoption rate, purpose alignment, and accountability.
They can come from leadership roles or analyst, but the
main consideration is that they are prepared to be the
cheerleader of the new ways of working. In the case of

70 71
procurement analytics, we’ve found that users are generally
more welcoming than other types of users—probably
because they are starved for good analytics. But like others,
will still be disappointed if their needs aren’t met during
implementation.
The implementation process must involve key users
throughout the journey. Successful implementation begins
long before the solution is bought or built, from the early
process of collecting the needs from key stakeholders.
Early involvement of the key users is important for learning
the necessary requirements and use cases. Collecting
information from key stakeholders throughout the process
and hearing them out makes them feel involved and
eventually results in them supporting the choice taken. This
is referred to as “buy-in.” Without buy-in, implementation will
fail before it has begun. When users have buy-in, their needs
are heard, and they recognize that the solution will solve
their problems.
A low adoption rate is one of the biggest concerns of
implementation. Failures in adoption can occur for several
reasons and across the whole software use span. Failed
adoption leads to the organization not harnessing full
potential of its investment, and therefore it’s important that
stakeholders understand why a solution is needed and what
problem it is fixing. Here are four ways in which adoption can
fail:
The solution isn’t used to its full potential. The
most common failure in adoption is not enough
users taking advantage of the solution. This may
72
be due to poor communication or onboarding
before implementation—in other words, they
don’t know the value it provides, or they simply
don’t know it exists. The problem compounds as
new potential users enter the organization but
aren’t onboarded well. They learn from example
that the solution isn’t providing value to existing
users.
The solution is used at first, but users drop
off later. The second failure in adoption is a
decrease of users after the “honeymoon” phase.
User activity can decrease if the tool does not
meet the expectations. It could be that the
solution doesn’t develop, or the features become
dull. Maybe it’s just not that easy to use, or the
promised value isn’t realized. The remedy to
this is active listening, such as a survey after the
launch phase to identify emergent issues.
The solution requires more work than the old
way. A solution that isn’t easy to use won’t be
used. It’s as simple as that. If users feel like their
complaints aren’t being heard, they will come up
with shortcuts and workarounds. If the shortcuts
and workarounds are more cumbersome than
the old way of doing things, users will stop using
the solution. All the time and resources that
go into a solution will be wasted if the product
doesn’t function. A solution must provide value
and improve the status quo, not make it more
complex. Bad user experience—like needing to
73
 move the data to Excel for further analysis—will
decrease user numbers.

There is resistance from the beginning. This is

where adoption has failed from the beginning.
This is a clear sign of no buy-in. This failure
of adoption hints that a change agent was
needed. There may have been resistant to the
1
change in systems or change in general. 7 Keys for
success with
In the case of procurement analytics, the software implementation
must have reliable numbers. It must be easy to use
2 and adoption
and work as expected, and some intuitive usability
wouldn’t hurt either.
3
The way value is measured must be clearly defined
through realistic expectations setting and training.
Adoption and successful implementation are built
4
upon the foundations of training and expectations
management. Without setting expectations of 5
the value, users will overestimate—and eventually
abandon. To review, here is a list of tips for successful
implementation: 6

74 75
Concluding thoughts
In software development, the build or buy debate was
resolved decades ago. Most organizations turn to vendors for
almost all their business software needs. But the same trend
has been slow to happen in procurement analytics. Why is
that? IT departments may argue that they know their systems
or users better, but the market space is in constant change
and user requirements are evolving. It requires superhuman
abilities to keep up. This is the reason why no one builds their
own ERPs today. It’s paradoxical to think that analytics will be
any different.
The workload of maintaining in-house analytics is huge, and IT
teams are already backlogged with requests for dashboards
and reports. Pre-existing solutions with an established
customer base allow IT to focus their development resources
on solving more business-critical and domain-specific
challenges. Outsourcing solution development relieves the
IT workload, allowing them to focus on more pressing issues.
External partners focus their development efforts on domain
specific needs, resulting in maximum user satisfaction.
Building a solution can easily go south. What started off
as an ambitious project can slowly turn into outsourced
development after all. Perhaps another
more important project for the internal IT organization
emerged, leading to the outsourcing of some of the
development. What started off as in-house development
can turn into a costly never-ending project with various
specification changes, key people changes, and multiple
76
hourly-priced consultants involved. At this stage it is
commonly understood that the project should have been
outsourced all along, because leaning more on external
development resources can become extremely cost
intensive. When losing oversight during the development,
there is the risk of being tied to those developers later for
updates, maintenance, or even minor fixes.
Buying a solution that serves a purpose for the time being
doesn’t rule out the option to build better fit in-house
solutions later. If the organization has a need to harness
the potential of their data now, they do not want to wait
for years of development. Serving existing user needs
now and evaluating alternative development avenues later
is not a duplication of effort: it is a step along the way in
your organizational maturity. As long as the build or buy
consideration remains open, it’s up to solution providers
to better justify the investment of a readymade solution.
Providers need to be more cost effective, user intuitive, and
prove their access to development and technologies. As this
technology develops, it’s more difficult to justify why anyone
should build a solution by themselves. It’s counterproductive
to try and access these technologies with a single-company
investment when economies of scope can do it at scale. The
opportunity costs are only increasing. It takes an ecosystem
of highly specialized solutions and third-party integrations
to achieve the full potential of what’s possible. The next
chapter will discuss the components of a procurement data
ecosystem and how they can be managed.
77
78 79
 CHAPTER 4

Leveraging
procurement data
ecosystems

80 81
 T
echnology ecosystems are made up of interconnected
and synergistic applications that work as a cohesive
system. This is the trend in the consumer market—the
emergence of an ecosystem of connected applications. Take
the smartphone, for example. The smartphone is primarily a
platform for applications created by third party developers.
Through the digital marketplace, millions of developers

“
compete for downloads of their application. Each application
solves a unique problem and creates an ecosystem of solutions
that cohesively solve for diverse daily activities—counting
calories, getting directions, chatting with friends, etc. As the
consumer market has raced ahead in this domain, professional
You can use logic to software and applications are generally far worse in terms of
cohesive connectivity.
justify almost anything.
That’s its power. And its The procurement software market has been slow to adopt
ecosystem thinking and has started out as quite bulky and
flaw.” operational. For long, procurement software was unintuitive,
poor to connect to other applications and external data, and
created a lot of siloed information. To solve this issue, best-of-
breed procurement software have been striving towards the
connectivity and user experience of consumer applications.
Because they aren’t tied to legacy software or coding and are
- Captain Cathryn Janeway, built from the ground up for specific use cases, they are better
Star Trek: Voyager (1995), season 1,
episode 10 suited towards building procurement data ecosystems.

What is in a procurement
data ecosystem
Procurement data ecosystems are collections of networked
systems and applications that together manage all

82 83
procurement’s knowledge and data, bringing visibility to
information, relationships, and institutions. Procurement is Components of
connected to commodity markets, various information sources, a procurement ecosystem
and different actors and institutions. While the traditional
approach to procurement sees a narrow view of suppliers, Information Relationship Institution
the ecosystem view of procurement sees an interconnected related related related
web of suppliers. As opposed to the traditional bilateral view
of supply relationships and transactions, the ecosystem view
of procurement expands to cover networks of supply chains Spend data: the Commercial Market networks:
and collaborators. The ecosystem view encompasses a variety core element of relationships: a global and regional
the procurement valuable source of collectives of
of organizations, technologies, market spaces, stakeholders,
ecosystem is market knowledge businesses and
decision makers, and even NGOs. The procurement ecosystem spend data. This is that feeds organizations
perspective emphasises collaboration, information exchange, the fabric that innovation and connected to the
and sustainability. It is the sum of all the data and technologies, connects suppliers, competitive supply chain.
relationships, and institutional actors connected to the business. materials, services, advantage. These
categories, and include vendors,
The elements of the procurement ecosystem have always markets. market players,
existed. However, in procurement these components have partners, and
subcontractors.
generally been siloed and disconnected. The knowledge
existed within the people but wasn’t integrated with the
whole. The data existed in spreadsheets but wasn’t synced,
Third party data: Stakeholder Economic
up-to-date nor accessible for agile decisions. Having a holistic
external data on relationship: the networks: the
procurement ecosystem means that spend data is connected supply chain risk, extended sphere of economies that are
to other components in the network; internal relationships diversity, strategic built up of markets.
and processes connect to market networks; third party sustainability, relationships. This
data connects to supplier relationships; and so on. All the market includes
components feed into each other. Only through the digital commodities, and relationships with
transformation of procurement can this implicit knowledge more. shareholders,
customers, and
be leveraged. It requires managing both internal and external
partners.
knowledge and data, robust systems and information flows,
world-class data, agility, hyper relevance, and intelligent
platforms.

84 (Table continues after this page) 85

 Components of The components of
a procurement ecosystem a procurement data
Information Relationship Institution ecosystem
related related related

Strategic Governmental
information: the institutions: Kno
strategy, regulatory bodies wl
ed
processes, and that impact ge
Knowledge of market -re
direction of the procurement, la
networks, economic
organization that concerning data

te
networks, government,

In

d
guide policies (e.g. and advisory networks

sti
tu
procurement. GDRP), trade, and

tio
sustainability.
ated

nal
-rel

-rel
ip
sh Commercial,

ated
n
stakeholder, internal,

io
lat
and PR/media

Re
relationships
Socio-economic
information:
relevant
Spend data, third
information on party data, strategic
legislation, information,
governance, socio-economic
information
politics, the

d
In f

te
environment, and o rmation- r e l a
social values.

Knowledge: the implicit knowledge, skills, and expertise of the

organization and its people, as well as the external knowledge of
industry leaders and visionaries.

86 87
The benefits of a reporting turns into agile insights, more time can be spent
on innovation initiatives and supplier relations. Although
procurement data suppliers are a key source of innovation, procurement is
ecosystem often too busy with transactional and reporting activities to
look forward. The promise of a procurement data ecosystem
is more time dedicated to what’s truly important: building
In practice, a procurement data ecosystem is an
partnerships and innovation capabilities through the supplier
organization’s set of processes and technologies that
network.
coordinate the vast amount of information-, relationship-, and
institution-related knowledge that impacts procurement.
A procurement data ecosystem acts as an enabler for
Procurement has a lot of knowledge that can bring value
sustainable procurement, which is becoming more and
to the organization: they follow markets and commodities,
more of an important theme in procurement along with
manage risk, seek new sourcing opportunities, and nurture
other functions. True assessment of sustainability requires
supplier relationships. This knowledge, though, can often be
data from suppliers, as well as third party enrichments,
too disparate and disconnected to truly maximize its value. It
internal data, and a wider understanding of markets. Without
can often exist in messy forms of data, like in emails, meeting
a procurement data ecosystem, all this data is hard to
notes, or spreadsheets. Market insight and knowledge may
connect. Many emissions happen outside the boundaries
only exist in the minds of the people. Conversations with
of the company, and both internal and external data needs
suppliers can be lost to time. The daily tasks of reporting and
to be captured and integrated to get the full picture. Even
managing this knowledge can hold back value generating
if this data can somehow be organized in a meaningful way
planning.
manually, there are too many moving parts to stay up to
date with continuous assessment. What a procurement data
A well-functioning procurement data ecosystem, on the
ecosystem can do for sustainability is take care of the heavy
other hand, allows for more time for strategic action. It uses
lifting and get to the strategic decisions faster. This enables
better data flows and data management to bring insights
human interaction, innovation, and partnership to become
faster. Consider how spend analytics is handled without
the main activities, not data crunching.
a good procurement data ecosystem. It becomes a time
consuming and laborious monthly reporting task. When
Architecture of a procurement data ecosystem
connected to a procurement data ecosystem, insights are
So how does one build a systems architecture that can
more responsive and nuanced, while risk and disturbances
leverage a procurement data ecosystem? The answer lies
are seen more clearly. When internal and external data are
in the concept of a “procurement information hub” (also
integrated, planning becomes much more agile. As monthly
known as a procurement data hub). This hub acts as a

88 89
centralized service that connects all the procurement data
from your systems, solutions, or core business platforms. It
orchestrates the connections to each of the systems and the
data flow amongst them. In the model below is an illustration
of how this procurement information hub can leverage the
procurement data ecosystem. There are seven key channels
which direct the flow of information:
1 Between users and the procurement information
hub
2 From internal data repositories (e.g., ERP
systems) to the procurement information hub
3 From external data repositories (e.g., Supplier
risk score databases) to the procurement
information hub
4 Within the procurement information hub, where
data is cleansed and combined
5 Between the procurement information hub and
community intelligence (e.g., partner networks
or consultants)
6 From the procurement information hub to the
internal data repositories or other systems to
trigger actions, and
7 From the procurement information hub to any
other systems and back to the data lake.
90
The end result for users is easy access to a wide range of
information, or a “single source of truth.” A procurement
information hub is one piece of the wider IT architecutre and
serves the greater whole by feeding combined and enriched
data back to the data lake for further repurposing.
The technological applications required to create a
procurement data ecosystem solve for all areas of
procurement planning, strategic sourcing, and source-to-pay.
The ecosystems consist of solutions for sourcing, tendering,
purchasing, spend analysis, contracting, risk management,
performance management, and procurement development.
There are specific solution providers that cater to different
parts of the process. Solution providers that cater to only a
limited number of areas are often labelled as best-of-breed,
while providers that cater to several areas are called full-
suites.
Best-of-breed systems are developed to cater to a
certain challenge, by merging multiple data sources and
systems together. The starting point for their development
considers the existing solution environment, mature
analytical needs, and the complex nature of data. Best-of-
breeds are developed from the beginning to provide best
connectivity with other systems and solutions. Modern
procurement organizations have come to realize that the
complex procurement data ecosystem cannot be captured
on one platform alone. To leverage the procurement data
ecosystem, a variety of platforms and software must be
used. Best-of-breed is usually best in the individual areas of
expertise, whereas parts of the full-suites can be sub-par and
may exist only to complete the suite.
91
 It is often assumed that the applications within full-suites
will work seamlessly together, with data flowing beautifully
between applications. Unfortunately, many times separate
applications are developed independently, making the full-
suite a combination of separate solutions, just as it would
be working with several best-of-breeds. Full-suites have
been developed over time as iterations of existing systems.

7 6
They carry with them certain assumptions and legacy. Their
abilities to connect with multiple sources and systems may
therefore be limited. Combining and enriching data can turn
Users alytics laye
An r into a complex scripting exercise when data is stored in

1
historic siloes. Hence, data can be siloed both in full-suites
Procurement
5
and best-of-breeds, but APIs make data transfer easier than
Information before.
Hub
4
Agile planning and forecasting with siloed data can be time
consuming. Data must be fetched and merged from many
different sources and does not intuitively connect to the

2 3
wider procurement data ecosystem. Planning in procurement
under these limitations is like navigating the sea with several
maps, wind readers, and compasses. Each tool provides
a relevant—but disconnected—set of data which must be
synthesized in a time-consuming way. Procurement data
ecosystems attempt to work like a modern-day GPS, using
networks of information to pinpoint location faster, leaving
more time for exploration without the fear of getting lost.

The more integrated data becomes, the more mature the

analysis can be. Even though single full-suite systems cannot
on their own support a procurement data ecosystem,
they remain the norm. Why is that? The reality is that not
every organization is ready to enhance their procurement

92 93
maturity, and that’s okay. While the forefront of procurement
is rapidly advancing, an operational approach can still get
the job done. IT departments—which are responsible for
overseeing the integration of procurement software—usually
will prefer a full-suite solution. It is perceived as requiring
a simpler integration process. With one solution promising
all the functionalities needed, it is believed that the total
process and management will go smoother. However, this
is not entirely realistic. Full-suite implementations can turn
into a complex, high risk of failure exercise if you choose to
implement and train multiple solutions one after another and
try to cover too much ground and agenda at once.
Compare this to best-of-breeds, where implementation
occurs one building block at a time. Building a procurement
data ecosystem through numerous third-party solutions is
beneficial in the sense that each solution is more specialized,
faster to implement, and has a lower threshold to use.
Solutions which put all their focus in one area will always
be more advanced. The market of best-of-breeds is moving
faster towards connectivity than full-suite applications.
Full-suites may integrate well within the suite, but not with
the wider ecosystem. If development of the suite solutions
is siloed, the connectivity of inter-suite components can be
suboptimal as well. To be fair, best-of-breeds’ interoperability
is in its early stages, and there is still a lot of room for
improvement.
Full-suites can work better for some. Full-suites provide
one point of contact for communication, compared to
having multiple best-of-breed account managers to
discuss with. You work with only one provider when it
94
comes to implementation planning, change management,
development, and problem resolution. Full-suites promise to
deliver a holistic experience for users. Users have one “look
and feel” and set of functionalities to absorb and operate.
Frankly, the UI transitions and linkages aren’t always as
smooth as one might think. While it may appear that full-suite
can do everything, they are criticized for compromising on
application-specific capabilities. Often full-suites promote
their reporting functionalities, but in practice, the individual
suite solutions can be siloed and increase the level of
reporting complexity.
Obviously, with either choice, there is a stickiness involved.
It’s time consuming to change systems either way. When
building connected data flows, changing systems too
often is counterproductive. Therefore, the importance of
the selection phase cannot be understated. When building
the data ecosystem one solution at a time, there is less
risk associated with picking the wrong solution. From the
beginning, there should be foresight towards complementary
capabilities. This means reducing all barriers for future
development opportunities and solutions. While best-of-
breeds are by no means perfect, they are younger and
more fit to go in this direction. It is up to the procurement
organization to think about their data ecosystem
requirements from the beginning.
95
 Concluding thoughts
As the data complexity of an organization increases, the
more mature analytics must become. While the individual
parts of a procurement data ecosystem have always existed,
the technological capabilities to connect both internal and
external data is becoming better every day, making for a very
exciting time to be involved in the digital transformation of
procurement. The procurement role is becoming way more
advanced in its ability to provide a window to the external
data world, due to the possibilities in creating procurement
data ecosystems. Procurement data ecosystems take
advantage of a wide partner network, as well as the diverse
knowledge and capabilities of people. When technologies,
tools, information flows, and people are connected through
a procurement data ecosystem, exciting possibilities
await. The users and their knowledge will have a greater
opportunity to shine. But for that to occur, data must be
made more available, accessible, and understandable. The
next chapter will discuss the implications and benefits of the
“democratization of data.”
 

96 97
 CHAPTER 5

Democratization
of data

98 99
 What is the democratization
of data?

“
The word “democracy” has many common connotations:
freedom, equal opportunities, universal rights, and majority
rule, to name a few. In the data world, data democratization

You know the greatest is the effort to enable enterprise-wide access to data without
gatekeepers and bottlenecks. It entails the ongoing effort
danger facing us is to make sure that people of all technical abilities can talk
comfortably about the data and make timely, informed, data-
ourselves, and irrational based decisions. Yet the democratization of data is often
misunderstood, and rarely practiced. Everyone knows that
fear of the unknown. data quality, security, and maintenance are important. But the

There is no such thing instinct to protect data to keep it clean is counterproductive

to data democratization. Time has shown that being

as the unknown. Only overprotective of data is what restricts its potential value.
Overprotection of data leads to the unfair distribution of
things temporarily information and opportunities to influence. The more data is
shared, combined, and used, the greater the opportunity to
hidden, temporarily not create value based on new findings and innovations.

understood.” For data to be democratized, there are some characteristics

it needs to fulfil. The data must meet three criteria:

- Captain James T. Kirk,

Star Trek (1967), season 1, Be available: meaning that the data is
episode 10 somewhere ready to be grabbed in a timely
manner without gatekeepers.

Be accessible: meaning that all (relevant) people

100 101
 can access it; there should be no unnecessary
physical, social, lingual, or technical limitations Resistance to data
to its access. democracy
Be understandable: meaning that you don’t The protectionist view of data is understandable. There
need to be a data scientist to understand the are many worries with exposing data: security concerns,
important parts of the data. data leaks, uncomfortable situations, judgement, sharing
departmental information, revealing personal expertise or
knowledge, bad actors, or negligence. Sharing data without
The Availability of the data can be influenced by the data suitable self-service tools as lenses to look at that data can
architecture. Data can come from hundreds of sources, lead to an increase in the number of user requests for the
but that shouldn’t affect the ability to quickly access the analytics team. Sharing data with more people leads to more
relevant information. Accessibility implies that even non- unknowns, exposes you and your work to criticism, and isn’t
specialists can work with the data. The goal is to reduce always the easy path—but the democratization of data is the
as many barriers as possible: that means no fenced off way to get the most value out of data. Fear of negligence and
buildings and access for users of all abilities and disabilities. human error should not come in the way of data democracy.
Understandability can relate to the intuitiveness and
presentability of the data and interface. The objective is
to support user comprehension of the data, and ultimately
insights. They should be able to see the big picture, but also
trace back to the smallest level of detail. This includes easily
operating filters like time frame, currency, business unit, and
more, enabling a user to see the data from any familiar or
relevant context. The understandability also must fall within
a reasonable level of effort, supported by easy access to
information (user manuals) and built-in help wizards. To sum it
all up: democratized data is data that is accessible in a timely
manner and understandable with a reasonable level of effort
which enables a wide array of perspectives, insights, and
knowledge for all users.

102 103
Democratization of data is usually a key step in an insights-
driven transformation but does not come free of charge for
the IT and analytics teams. It can overwhelm data teams as
requests come pouring in from all corners of the company.
Data and analytics teams may experience challenges
because even “self-service” platforms still require some
assistance, data isn’t always clean and ready for use when
requested, and the workload will increase with new users. On
top of that, most users don’t know how to ask for what they
want. But an increased workload or other concerns should
not be a reason to halt the democratization of data. The risks
and challenges associated are manageable, with the right
tools and process. Moreover, it’s important to understand
that democratizing data doesn’t just mean “data for
everyone”. It means data in the hands of more unique minds
and smart individuals, drawing broader insights and allowing
participation in decision-making in a timely manner with as
few limitations as possible. The benefits of moving towards a
modern society far outweigh the risks and concerns.
Data is information. Information breeds knowledge.
Knowledge is power. For too long, data has existed in “ego-
systems” rather than ecosystems. An egosystem refers to
an area where people with large egos exist, all trying to get
their own initiatives and excellence through. In egosystems,
egos get in the way of connectivity. Ultimately, the question
of who has access to data is a question of fairness; those
with data have the power to understand and impact things.
In traditional work hierarchies, data access has usually been
limited to specific roles, functions, or locations. Realistically,
in most organizations there is some data that cannot be
shared with every employee. Democratizing data does not
104
mean that the company’s payroll should automatically be
public information—though some brave companies have
taken this radical approach as well. But the democratization
of data requires a serious audit of what is considered
confidential, and whether obsolete barriers and gatekeepers
are holding the organization back. Too often, data is hidden
because of fear of what might be revealed or surfaced,
and that fear is masked as a data privacy concern. To put
it bluntly, if you feel uncomfortable sharing your data, you
should ask yourself: is there something you are trying to
hide?
Consequently, siloed data bound by data ownership is a
killer of vision and has many subtle effects. Since data is
hidden from others, there may be a general lack of trust in
the data. This also extends to other data partners, leading to
limited collaboration. Data owners become fixated on a small
piece of the data pie without seeing the full picture. It also
complicates data governance, since data owners will have
to double their efforts to clarify the consistency of formatting
and other details when the data changes hands or interacts
with another siloed data set. Data democracy, therefore,
needs to start from a place of trust. Data owners will have to
forsake total control but will be opening the organization to a
new world of discovery.
Data friendly leadership
Traditionally, the ones at the top have the most information.
Restricting access to data can be used as a weapon for
keeping oneself in power. This eventually leads to ones
105
higher on the corporate ladder hoarding knowledge
and power, while those below have less influence and
information. It limits their ability to put their competencies
into use. Nonetheless, knowledge is often shared informally
in these hierarchical organizations, but these unofficial routes
only create unnecessary friction and misunderstandings as
a by-product. Information that is shared via unofficial routes
may be incomplete or only showcase part of the story. Thus,
it is better to share data with an open approach. When
everyone has the same information, the power dynamic
changes. It inspires more meritocracy through a level playing
field, though it can feel like a threat to those who have
benefitted from the old information hierarchies. Therefore,
democratization of data requires different leadership
behavior.
Data is needed to make good decisions. It allows people
to work from the same starting point. It’s a way to share
information and make the best decisions, with facts and
not feelings. With data transparency, the level of healthy
competition increases. Most significantly, more informed
decisions are made. Data-friendly leaders should be willing
to be challenged. They must understand that they can’t
know everything themselves and shouldn’t even try to. Data-
friendly leaders will make it their mission to expose as many
people to the data as possible. They leverage it, share it, and
never force consensus. They allow for different arguments
and viewpoints to arise if they are supported by data.
With the democratization of data, mistakes can be spotted
and corrected more frequently, and new insights are
surfaced. Opportunities for improvement in the organization
106
come with a wider audience with more diverse viewpoints.
At the same time, the data quality is improved, led by users
and real use cases. Data-friendly leaders shouldn’t feel
threatened by being proven wrong—they should welcome it.
Democratization of data is about empowering people in their
own work and encouraging them to show their knowledge
and competencies. Data helps people communicate
their knowledge in an understandable way. It encourages
continuous improvement and challenges bias. It should
be the goal of leaders to get data in the hands of as many
people as possible.
The democratization of data is a fundamental change in the
way of working. There will need to be a clear alignment of
responsibilities between business, operations, and IT during
this change. Data democratization is a means to an end, but
not the end point. New users must be able to increase their
skills in decision-making with data. According to Harvard
15
Business Review , 86% of readers surveyed say that frontline
workers need better technology enabled insight to be able
to make good and timely decisions. However, Deloitte finds
67% of executives aren’t comfortable with accessing data
16
from their existing tools and resources . It is the responsibility
of data leaders to be good listeners, pay attention to pain
points, and lead by example in the new way of working.
When managing the data democracy, leadership will be just
as important as the tools and data.
107

Data-driven decision making
Many claim to want open, transparent, data-based decision
making. But what does that really mean? Data reduces the
influence of personal opinions, unconscious bias and feelings
we cannot dismiss. To feel strongly is the beauty of being
a human, but also our flaw when it comes to logic and
rationality. Data leads to a rational and scientific worldview,
allowing a group of people to make decisions from a clear
unbiased starting point. It enables working in an objective
way towards defined goals where one’s personal preferences
have less of an impact. Disclaimer: data, like everything,
can still fall victim to flaws in human interpretation. Even the
purest of data is subject to some level of interpretation. But if
you can trust the data, and it remains untampered with, your
decision making will be transparent and can be challenged
by others. If someone doesn’t understand your reasoning,
you can always point back to the data as your source of
truth—and in the best scenario, a fruitful debate will take
place. Data gives voice and credibility to those who may
not be the most influential, charismatic, vocal or speak in the
loudest voice.
Furthermore, as personal preferences have less of an impact,
data empowers people to communicate their knowledge
and expertise in an understandable way. Data also gives
transparency to past decision-making. When data-based
decisions go wrong, there is a clear audit tracing the
decision back to the data, so learning and improvement can
take place. Without a single source of truth to go back to,
108
bad decisions can be chocked up to any number of excuses.
Data-based decision making does not undermine the value
of human intuition, though. Educated decisions are based on
information and data, but also past experiences, situational
awareness, soft skills, judgement, and other human factors
guiding how that information is utilized and what conclusions
are drawn. Data should help us make better, more informed
decisions. Relying heavily on data should not overrule the
leader’s sensitivity, consideration, and discretion when taking
their stance and communicating their decisions.
The walled garden
The classical idea of data management is akin to a walled
garden cared for by a small group of gardeners. These
gardeners have been trained in the sacred art of horticulture.
They know every species, every genus, and every plant’s
nutritional requirement. They toil their days trimming hedges,
watering, and carefully pruning their prized plants. If you
were to tell these gardeners that the whole village has come
to help, they would lose their minds! After their years of
delicate work, the whole garden could be levelled in seconds
by the clumsy hands of the townspeople overwatering this
plant, trampling those flowers, and messing up carefully
measured soil PH. A whole lot of data management and IT
departments resemble these devoted gardeners. But, in fact,
this whole walled garden metaphor is an incorrect starting
point. Data gets cleaner with more hands. If each villager
was given a garbage picker and taught to be invested in the
beauty of that garden, the place would be left cleaner than it
was before thanks to the guided help of others.
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 Consider one of the most widely recognized databases in
the world: Wikipedia. Imagine if Wikipedia was maintained
with a walled garden approach. It’s ludicrous imagining a
few editors maintaining the approximate 6.3 million articles
17
on the website, each with about 1,700 words . A group
of editors would have to work tirelessly day and night
combing articles for errors, creating countless new entries,
and would most certainly end up with a worse online
encyclopedia. Furthermore, those editors would need to
be experts in many subjects. Wikipedia has recognized that
the expertise exists within their user base. Wikipedia is a
true example of democratized data. 41,768,993 registered
“Wikipedians” around the world edit the site, adding
18
content, fixing grammar, and removing vandalism . Wikipedia
19
acknowledges that “perfection is not required: Wikipedia
is a work in progress”. The more hands that work on editing
and improving Wikipedia, the better it becomes. In principle,
this should apply to all data. With low barriers to make
corrections and adequate controls on how changes are
approved and applied, your data will improve.
Managing the data
democracy
Most data managers would shriek in fear if they knew that
anyone could edit their data. The scenario in their head
opens a big can of worms: who can make changes? How
often will they be making changes? How can they be
tracked? What will happen to the master data? To compound
this problem, in most organizations data is in many different
places across different systems. Managing data efficiently
110
is only possible through connected platforms that can
communicate between different systems, with one system
acting as the master or source for each data set. When this is
achieved, data won’t get mismatched between systems, and
people know what to trust. But more importantly, to harness
the knowledge in your data ecosystem, editing must have a
very low barrier to entry. When a user discovers an error and
wants to correct the data, it must take seconds or minutes,
not days. This will motivate users to make changes and
capture their knowledge into the system. But not all types of
edits are the same, and not everything has to be editable—
there is room for some guard rails and good management
practices in the world of data democratization as well.
Security in data democracy
Data privacy and security are real concerns and are the
only valid reasons to restrict access to data. It is important
to demand good practices and tooling from your software
providers in these aspects. However, often user error (e.g.
sending confidential data through email) is a more common
security threat than malicious intent (hackers), and this is
where good design steps in. If the software is designed with
the users in mind, with understandable permissions, good
explanations, internal sharing capabilities, and alerts, most
pitfalls can be avoided without extremely tight user-specific
data restrictions. So, there is a place for data restrictions, but
we urge organizations to keep them as simple as possible.
Security by obscurity is not a thing anymore. Nor is keeping
data confidential for reasons like internal competition, team
politics, or decision-making power.
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User experience in data
democracy
The more people are using data, the more important user
experience (UX) becomes. Good UX is a major factor in
influencing how accessible and understandable the platform
is. UX can either attract or off put users that might have
valuable insights. Consumerization is influencing B2B services
by raising the bar customers set for UX design. As customers
get to experience extensively polished user interfaces and
simple services in their daily life, the demand for a similar
experience in their work-life B2B applications is rising. When
people like and understand a tool, and it can seamlessly
integrate into an ecosystem, high adoption rate—and hence
data usage and data democratization—are achieved. When
it comes to data platforms, good UX and adoption rate lead
to happier customers and ultimately to more business value.
We want organizations to share the tool - and data - with as
many people as possible. An analytics platform is a tool that
might commonly be used by many departments. Therefore,
an analytics platform is something that would likely benefit
from being democratized to users of all skill levels. These are
the top 8 features that make good UX for analytics:
1 Don’t limit data where not necessary. For true value
to be extracted out of the data, don’t restrict what
users can see. This prohibits people from making
discoveries beyond the initially identified use cases.
The same principle applies to user accounts: let
everyone access the platform if possible.
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2 Have simple and understandable key performance
indicators (KPIs). Analytics tools are a great way of
keeping track of performance with complex data
sets. But that doesn’t mean that the KPIs should be
overly complex. Simple KPIs help get to a shared
understanding faster and provide a shared starting
point to all users.
3 Show visibility down to the lowest level of data.
Underneath the aggregated numbers, you need to
be able to drill down to the lowest level. Reality
checking data is a good data habit and allows users
to really understand and trust the numbers.
4 Work in the context of data. Whenever you want to
drill down, fix errors, or take actions in the platform,
the context of the data shouldn’t change. Leaving the
page to make changes or view a history is poor UX.
On that note, Support the data savvy people as well.
Analytics platforms should also be flexible enough for
ad hoc analysis by pros and offer a place for complex
analytics as well.
5 Provide short explanations, tool tips, and help
wizards. Even for regular users, hovering over a term
or action and seeing a short explanation of what it
does can bring a lot of peace of mind. It saves time,
creates a common understanding, and can prevent
mistakes. This means more than a PDF manual in the
company’s intranet. It must be baked into the UX.
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 6 Offer shortcuts. There should be a fast and easy way organizations is leadership and culture - protectionism and
to return to a specific view or context, especially as fear. To overcome these, the discussion on data needs a tonal
people become more advanced on their analytics change, and a culture of sharing must be cultivated. As the
journey. world and markets move more towards ecosystem thinking,
data democracy will grow in relevance.
7 Promote sharing. The main benefit of democratized  
data is that it allows for more perspectives and
interpretations. Consequently, sharing your view with
your colleagues should be easy and not change the
data at hand because of needless permission rights.
8 ways to 1
8 Constant improvement. No matter what the program, ensure
users usually find a way around limitations, but get good UX
frustrated if their needs are consistently not met. 2
It’s up to the platform developers to listen to users
in analytics
and add the features they need. One of the critical
components in good UX design is listening to the
users proactively through feedback and addressing 3
their suggestions through a development roadmap.

There are, unfortunately, still many barriers slowing down 4

the democratization of data. Democratized data requires
people to share data openly and securely between people,
platforms, and software, but there are many contradicting 5
stakeholder perspectives. Governments must protect their
citizens’ privacy and security; businesses have confidential
competitive data; and individuals must have rights to control 6
their information.
7
Then again, it may be that the UX or technological
capabilities are not yet up to par. However, the largest 8
obstacle to data democracy within and between

114 115
 CHAPTER 6

Procurement
and IT working
together

116 117

“
Believing oneself to be
perfect is often the sign
of a delusional mind.”
- Data, Star Trek:
First Contact (1996)
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“Do we really need to
involve procurement?”
Both procurement and IT are contenders as the ‘Most
Difficult’ function. You can hear an audible *sigh* in the room
when others hear procurement or IT must be involved in
the discussion. This is because other stakeholders perceive
the two as working in silos. They get a bad rap for many
stereotypes: focusing too heavily on requirements bingo,
always harping about cost reduction initiatives, being
demanding towards their partners, slowing projects down,
having suboptimal understanding of business needs, and
holding rigidly on to their processes. For other stakeholders,
they can feel like IT and procurement always paint them
as thieves or sloppy workers. Both functions get a lot of
objections for their strict rule-keeping. Their controlling and
governing mindset leads to an obsession with processes,
rules, and regulations, and this obsession eventually causes
tunnel vision. Some stakeholder objection comes as a healthy
challenge of the existing processes and ways of working.
Other times, it is unnecessary rebellion that arises from
negative word of mouth and past experiences. This makes it
hard for the two to work with their stakeholders in an open,
honest, and collaborative way, let alone to work together.
Procurement and IT are best known for their large workloads
and long backlogs. Projects that should have been done
yesterday often hit their desks too late. The complexity
of requirements and lack of proactivity in stakeholder
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collaboration increases cycle time, which in turn leads to
higher amounts of frustration. According to a MuleSoft report,
51% of line of business managers say they are frustrated with
20
the speed of delivery of IT projects . 58% of them believe that
IT is just “keeping the lights on,” so to speak, and not driving
digital innovation. The same can be said for procurement,
who have been incredibly guilty of being operational
taskmasters. But we believe it’s time for both IT and
procurement to rise above these stereotypes. We believe
that IT and procurement can begin an era of collaboration.
Still, there are many old habits that must change. Rebranding
the functions in the hopes of a fresh start will fall short if
there is no real change in mindset and ways of working. Each
function needs to loosen up and become excited about new
opportunities instead of only focusing on risks and what
could go wrong. Each function has their own specialized
domain of expertise but could become more open to ideas
out of their silos. In order for procurement and IT to begin
their long-awaited love affair, they must reach a common
language of strategy and data.
So far, we’ve explained why procurement loves data, why
data management for procurement is hard, the fundamentals
of the build or buy decision, the need for procurement data
ecosystems, and why data should be democratized. But this
is where we get personal. At Sievo, we’ve seen the best and
worst of the procurement/IT relationship during our two
decades in the procurement software game. It is our mission
to bring IT and procurement closer together so that their
potential can be fully realized. Whether you’re a CPO or CIO,
we hope—since you’ve come this far—you’ll consider what
we have to say. Procurement truly does love IT, whether they
120
know it or not.
Communication is the key
A strong and healthy relationship is built upon the four
C’s: Communication, Compromise, Connection, and
Commitment. If procurement and IT were a couple, they
would definitely need relationship counselling from time to
time. In the worst-case scenarios, they may have occasional
difficulties in communicating their priorities and needs. They
may be reluctant to compromise with each other and with
other departments. They might be lacking connection to
the bigger picture because of working in siloes for too long.
They may struggle in making each other as successful in
their efforts as possible. One thing is certain: they have good
intentions, and they know their stuff. Yet focusing too heavily
on requirements and governance can hide their good intent.
As we discussed in Chapter 3: Build or Buy, the overall
data strategy (determined by IT) and the experiences of
the users (procurement) must be aligned. Data as an asset
is the common denominator between these functions
but they are coming from different perspectives. While IT
could improve their understanding of procurement data
use cases, procurement could better understand the wider
data strategy. This is where we have seen the biggest
discrepancies between the functions. When choosing a
procurement analytics solution, the decision is usually led
by procurement at first, but requires sign-off by IT. However,
procurement often fails to consider IT’s considerations early
on in the process. Information and cyber security could turn
121
into a real deal breaker if IT requirements are not covered their collaboration.
early enough. It could lead to frustrated stakeholders, delays,
and in the worst case, a no-go decision in the final mile. This
is where their relationship turns sour.
Learning from one another
While working together, IT and Procurement could also
Procurement and IT usually have a hard time expressing their learn a lot from each other. It’s critical that CIOs and CPOs
needs. Both can get stuck in their siloes and lose track of the put their cards on the table. Each must be upfront about
big picture. They both need to move towards collaborative their stakeholder concerns, priorities, and aspirations
ecosystem thinking instead of ‘egosystem’ thinking. When before making digital transformation leaps. Procurement
either party fails to speak up about their present needs, is specialized in sourcing, negotiation, and partner
alignment will be more difficult. Let’s say the IT department management, while IT is specialized in analytics, technical
has a plan towards building and controlling a data lake.
requirements, and agile project management. Data and
Meanwhile, procurement may be interested in a spend digitalization are an inevitable fact that will affect all sourcing
analysis solution which leverages valuable external data sets. categories in the future, so partnering with IT now should be
With all the time procurement spends in scoping software on every procurement organization’s roadmap. Below we
solutions, their plans could be shot down once IT enters have gathered topics for common ground and dialogue.
the conversation. From IT’s perspective, procurement’s Staying relevant within procurement requires next-level
wish to involve a third-party solution provider complicates
and disrupts their data management strategy. With a
What could IT learn from procurement?
more collaborative way of thinking, they could find ways
Best practices in IT solution sourcing, service
to communicate and compromise before the last minute,
level agreement (SLA) negotiation, vendor
sharing a greater vision together.
management, and supplier relationship
management (SRM).
Many stakeholders will become reluctant to speak out
when they feel they’ve been regularly misunderstood in the
What could procurement learn from IT?
past. This highlights the importance of effective listening,
data management and analytics skills, Agile
demonstrating empathy, and leading by example—putting
methodology in project management, technical
your money where your mouth is. It’s time for both functions
negotiation, and IT architecture requirements.
to change their behaviour. This will help IT and procurement
slowly change their perception in the organization, while also
adaptability. Procurement is dynamic in its nature, but
gaining trust from one another. Once their reputations get
often its processes can be perceived as time-consuming
better, we have a feeling they will be more willing to increase

122 123
and out-dated. In addition, the complexity of supply chains
and market environments is increasing. As the digital
development train rushes forward, you can either be on it
or left at the station reading yesterday’s news. Speed and
agility are required to keep up with market changes and
address evolving stakeholder needs.

The leading procurement organizations are moving from an

“operational” approach to a so called “lean-agile” approach
in project management. The term ‘agile’, borrowed from
software development, is widely adopted within the IT Method Operational Waterfall Lean-Agile
domain. Being agile means to be able to think, adopt,
learn, re-assess, and make changes quickly. Because Time-frame 2020+
IT development is seasoned with agile approach and
methodology, adopting the agile approach and welcoming
Source-to-contract Microservice app
learnings from IT could open new avenues for collaboration Tools and Source-to-pay ecosystem, AI,
suites powered analytics
and more efficient ways of working across the organization.

Technological Enterprise planning Internet, multitenant Cloud computing,

enablers software software AI, robotic process
automation (RPA)

Tactical cost Digitalized and

savings streamlined
Focus and operational enterprise
reporting procurement
processes

124 125
In the procurement context, the agile approach means
becoming less process-driven, less governance oriented,
and less orthodox. Instead of focusing on the “how,” the agile
approach focuses on the deliverables. The agile approach
promotes continuous improvement in terms of procurement
processes and technologies. It’s about technical excellence,
interpreting data, being open to new ideas, and empowering
individuals to take ownership. It shakes up traditional
procurement frameworks allowing teams to make educated
decisions faster. Finally, it builds on customer obsession and
early involvement of stakeholders.
21
Agile methodology consists of twelve core principles that
procurement could welcome:
1 Customer satisfaction is the highest priority.
2 Change is welcomed for competitive advantage.
3 Deliver working solutions at the shortest timescale,
frequently.
4 A project team must work daily throughout the
project to ensure transparency and commitment.
5 Build projects around motivated individuals. Enable
their success. Trust them.
6 Rely on face-to-face communication as it’s the
most effective way to share information.
7 Demonstrated customer value as the primarily
126
measure of progress.
8 Maintain sustainable development and steady
pace.
9 Attention to technical excellence and superior
design improves agility.
10 Less is more. Simplicity is essential.
11 The best outcomes emerge from self-organizing
teams.
12 Continuous improvement is the key. Teams should
frequently reflect how to become more effective
and adjust their ways of working accordingly.
An agile approach to procurement can promote collaborative
relationships and provide major improvements in customer
satisfaction. Agile approach could work as a conversation
starter for getting procurement and IT working together. Not
only can agile procurement deliver high quality outcomes
faster, but it is also the perfect methodology to build an
effective procurement strategy supporting procurement data
ecosystems.
How procurement and IT
can love working together
We don’t only want to point fingers and rehash stereotypes.
In order to pave the way for a positive and productive
127
relationship between these two functions, we’ve thought
through everything we’ve seen and heard over the years, and
collected these essential tips for increasing the love between
procurement and IT:
Establish common ground. Procurement and IT share a lot of
common ground in their love of data, rhythms, and ways of
working. As discussed in Chapter 1: Why Procurement Loves
Data, procurement is in the key strategic position to leverage
external data, while IT is usually tasked with the maintenance
of internal data. But because each function views data as an
asset, they have an excellent starting point of understanding.
The key to a productive collaboration between the two
functions is recognizing their fundamental relationships with
data and bridging their data processes. The vast wealth of
external data utilized by procurement needs to be integrated
and connected with internal data (e.g. transaction data) to be
insightful. Therefore, a valuable IT-procurement relationship
must share efforts to integrate these different sets of data
when building a procurement data ecosystem.
Align strategies and must-win battles. Aligning interests
can reveal either synergies or misalignments. These findings
should be discussed with the management and can act as
a great conversation-opener for improving alignment and
connectivity. As the designated heads of IT and procurement,
the CIO and CPO both have the responsibility of assessing
their department’s key objectives. According to the Deloitte
22
2021 Global CPO survey , “driving operational efficiency”
was the number one priority for CPOs, closely followed
by “reducing costs” and “digital transformation.” Gartner’s
23
2021 CIO Agenda puts redirecting resources towards
128
digital transformation and revamping business operations
to increase efficiency and resilience at the top of the list.
These priorities do share a lot of common ground, and both
include digital transformation in the top spots. With all the
possible applications of data and analytics, it’s exciting times
for CIOs and CPOs to work together on digital transformation
projects. The greatest barriers that stand in their way are the
implications of how those solutions work within the greater
whole.
Align project pipelines. Identifying potential for joint
projects can reduce the duplication of effort. Often,
procurement and IT are working with the same vendors
simultaneously. Working as a united front secures their
interests and can lead to more satisfactory negotiation
outcomes with vendors. Better project pipelines help others
visualize their workload on the individual level making for
happier and more productive teams.
Walk a day in their shoes. Choose to believe in the good
intentions of the other party. Understand the other’s
concerns and aspirations. This includes the question of
prioritization. For example, IT may argue for building
a solution in-house because it better suits their data
management architecture, whereas procurement may argue
that a third-party solution better fits their analytics needs.
Where the two functions become misaligned is how they
prioritize different business cases. For IT, they want an orderly
and well controlled data architecture, while procurement
wants the best fit tools for users, fast. What should be central
to the issue is the industry specific challenges of the business
domain. In some markets, an in-house solution will be a
129
better fit, while for others, the time and resources dedicated understand why it may be difficult for you to deliver for the
to development will hinder the potential competitive edge. next day if you were not engaged early enough.

Prove your value. If I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Learn to speak the same language. In order to shed some
Like working with any other function for the first time, you light on the occasional tension between IT and procurement
need to prove your value and why it makes sense to involve people, we’ve compiled this (not so serious) translation
you. IT could support procurement in the technical aspects guide for understanding one other.  
of negotiations or in adopting agile project methodology.
Procurement could support IT in better vendor management
and ensuring IT interests are covered in SLA negotiations.

Agree on mandatory requirements. Procurement and IT have

their own sets of requirements and standard documents to
introduce to vendors. If both parties have access to the latest
versions of standard documents and requirements, hiccups
can be avoided later on. As a result, the understanding of
requirements across business functions will improve. Do what
you can to make the other function’s life easier.

Agree on representation in leadership teams. To earn your

seat in the leadership team, you need to prove your value
with hard results and exciting insights. Share information
frequently and represent each other where feasible (having
one seat at a crowded table may be easier than two seats).
Business leadership could be interested in frequent external
data insights, vendor performance updates, or key project
status. Build each other up in the eyes of the stakeholders.

Share data and information proactively. Sharing your

development roadmap and successes will help prove
your value for the wider stakeholder audience as well.
Visualizing your project pipeline and workload will help them

130 131
 Subject Subject

Data User
Experience
(UX)

Minor change
The physical place
where the amazing,
IT corner beautiful, smart, and
talented work their
magic.
3rd Party

Vendor
Management

Security

The solution is
Successful implemented at the right
implementation time, at the right cost, to
the right stakeholders.

132 133
134 135

To data and
beyond!
Hopefully you’ve come to realize that internal
data myopia is a lonely path. The universe of
data, with innumerable galaxies of information,
can also be dark and scary if you are alone. IT
and procurement must stick together in their
quests through the data universe. Sometimes
the things you come across might be strange.
You might not be a same person you were
in the beginning of the journey. Fear and
uncertainty should not be the drivers. Fear and
lack of faith is the path to the dark side and
over-control.
136
136
You have a responsibility to make the world more data
friendly and just: for your colleagues, stakeholders, and
the greater good. This means not being satisfied with
subpar solutions and how things have always been. This
means democracy and equal opportunities for all in data
and decision making. This means welcoming change and
celebrating diversity of perspectives. Also, a little fun along
the way never hurt nobody. You will need various capabilities
and skills, and one person cannot hold them all. Be brave
and make many allies. Partner up and be genuine about your
motives. Han solo didn’t fly solo. You need a co-pilot. You
need great tools, and even better data wranglers.
Remember, data can justify almost anything. That’s its power.
And its flaw. Machine cannot do everything. Compassion may
be the one thing no machine ever had. Human evaluation,
passion, and empathy will become increasingly important
when everyone is looking at the same information and
machines aide us to make better decisions faster.
We hope this book has given you new ideas and arguments
to support your digitalization journey. Use it as a conversation
starter for the initiative of better partnerships and wonders
of data. If you feel you’re not ready to take that data leap just
yet, we’re there for you when that day comes.
With love from Sievo. May the data be with you.
137
137
“
138
You can’t stop change
any more than you
can stop the suns from
setting.”

- Shmi Skywalker,
Star Wars: Episode I
The Phantom Menace (1999)

139

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Acceleration, Gartner Inc., 2020. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/
publications/2021-cio-agenda-seize-this-opportunity-for-digital-business-
acceleration
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 Olli (He/Him):
Olli Saksa is the Head of Channel Sales and Partnerships

About the at Sievo. After collecting experience in business strategy,

supply chains and commercial management from his years in
management consulting and Nokia, Olli decided to move to

authors Sievo inspired by the growth and culture of the company. At

his current role he is enthusiastically building an ecosystem
of partners around Sievo to work closely in solving the most
challenging business problems clients have. Olli believes the
Sammeli (He/Him): collaboration and connectivity of specialized applications is
Sammeli Sammalkorpi is one of the two original co-founders
the key in succeeding in the field. In his free time, Olli tries to
who established Sievo in 2003. Hailing from the very north of
Finland, his parents had hopes he would become a reindeer restore the skills in badminton he used to have.
farmer but instead he turned into a software entrepreneur
and procurement advocate. Sammeli found Sievo after
gaining experience in management consulting and enterprise
information technology and is now the CEO of Sievo. In his
free time, Sammeli spends time on football field as a coach
and a player (which requires real strength of character in
Finnish weather 9 months of the year).

Heta (She/Her):
Heta Ruikka is the Vice President of Product Management
at Sievo, and she strives to develop Sievo as the best
Procurement Analytics solution the world has ever seen. She
holds a master’s degree from Aalto University in Industrial
Engineering and Management, and has delved in the world
of Product Management ever since graduating. As a young
leader in the space, she aspires to change the world into a
more open and data-driven one, where leadership is based
on empathy and empowerment. Splitting her time between
Helsinki and the Finnish archipelago, Heta is a lover of the
Baltic Sea, painting, Kizomba and - to balance it out -
Olympic weightlifting.

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 Acknowledments
Thank you to everyone involved in the making of this
book. It has been a true meeting of the minds and an
opening of many new potential avenues of discussion
and fresh collaborations.

Thank you Jasmiina Toikka & Erkki Paunonen for

translating the intricacies of our minds into paper with
your spice and polish.

Thank you to Tuomo Vierros, Roni Koskinen, Ossi

Karali, Heta Pirttijärvi and Mikko Miettinen for your
sharp minds, watchful eyes and subject-matter
expertise.

Thank you Lari Numminen and Mónica Suárez Galindo

for bringing color, humor, and life to these issues.

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 We give procurement, finance and leadership teams
a single source of truth and radical transparency to
all sourcing decisions. Our solution helps you choose
the right suppliers, deliver savings and manage

We are
compliance with confidence. Not only that, we enable
a sustainable, diverse and resilient supply base.

We master the art of extracting, classifying and

Sievo.
enriching data across all ERPs, procurement systems
and external data sources, saving your valuable time.
Simply put, we’re pretty damn good at turning even
the crappiest data into actionable insights!

We’ve pushed the boundaries of spend analytics

We're the procurement for two decades – and we’re just getting started.
analytics solution for We bridge the data-to-action gap and power agile
procurement by combining AI with procurement
data-driven enterprises.  expertise. 

Procurement organizations need an analytics partner

they can trust. We’re large enough to deliver, small
enough to care.

sievo.com

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Copyright © 2021 Sievo
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be
reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book
review. The publisher, the authors, the advisors and the editors are safe to assume
that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors, the advisors
Procurement <3 Data
or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material
contained here in or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

Advisors
Jasmiina Toikka and Erkki Paunonen

Layout
Mónica Suárez Galindo

Illustrations
Paula Garcia

sievo.com

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