July 8, 2010
Jeff Muscarella discusses why IT spending is a mechanism through which companies can improve efficiency. Many companies have been driving direct costs down, but have cut more than fat from the bone - like Toyota or BP did with safety. It is unsustainable to make further cuts.
One area companies tend to overlook is indirect costs. Things like technology, transportation, and energy become sacred cows in a corporate budget, but must be reassessed with a fresh perspective by purchasing and business users.
But how can corporations do this? NPI sees suppliers and vendors being held more accountable to deliver promised functionality, for example in business intelligence or analytics. We also see suppliers step up and guarantee business returns in addition to warrantees. This is new, and vendors are increasingly interested in seeing the ROI guaranteed on the front end actually be delivered.
NPI is a privately-held company that provides assistance for its customers in implementing rigorous processes for making sound spend management decisions. Using a combination of market experts and proprietary methodologies, NPI provides assessments of a variety of traditionally difficult spend management categories – information technology, telecommunications and transportation – to ensure that expenditures and operating expenses are in-line with current market conditions. NPI leads this emerging best practice, offering procurement expertise, a fair market value database and experience from both sides of the table with quality and integrity. For more information, please visit www.npifinancial.com.
