SpendHQ
Point-and-Click Assessment of Spend Data

Procurement has made huge strides from being a transactional task to a strategic and value-adding activity. With the advent of data analytics along with e-sourcing tools, the way organizations communicate with their suppliers has improved, allowing increased savings and performance. Moreover, powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) through Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning has driven automation and efficiency in traditional time and labor-intensive procurement functions. Organizations need offerings to manage their data supply chain and forecast future market movements while allowing procurement teams to make better decisions and seize opportunities by striking deals with suppliers based on intelligent predictions. Well positioned to address the requirements of procurement officials, Atlanta, GA, based SpendHQ offers solutions that provide complete spend intelligence to businesses for better decision-making to achieve their goals.

SpendHQ along with its parent company Insight Sourcing Group, facilitate over 300 sourcing and procurement projects a year. Because of the data that is collected, SpendHQ internally built a Master Data Warehouse, which is a part of the company’s backend process. “Master Data Warehouse is a technological environment through which we process information received from clients and cleanse it,” says Darren Shipp, SVP of Product & Operations, SpendHQ. “We provide our clients with a true picture of their spending along with vendor details through our internet-based applications.”

One of the core services provided by the company is optimization of client’s data. “Through our Procurement Data Optimization service, we analyze multiple disparate data sources from clients as well as combine and normalize them,” adds Shipp. The next step in data optimization is vendor categorization schema and taxonomy that makes the data consumable and accessible.

We involve procurement professionals or “Humanware™” in validating the vendor transactions to ensure the highest quality outcome

“We have built a taxonomy structure in alignment with our strategic philosophy that allows procurement professionals to understand what their spend is and react accordingly,” extols Shipp. “We also involve procurement professionals or “Humanware™” in validating the vendor transactions to ensure the highest quality outcome.”

Adding to the portfolio of the services offered by SpendHQ is Category Management and Contract Visibility. The combination of these tools allows customers to create custom metadata about their contracts and also, monitor line item transaction details. All of these tools interacting give a better understanding of spend category and provide solutions that allow the company’s customers to have a better understanding of their expected and actual expenditure and also improve their ROI.

Over the span of three years, SpendHQ has helped many organizations to gain enhanced knowledge about their spend and vendor relationships. In one such instance, a client approached the company with the target to save $20MM in a year. SpendHQ implemented its process and after six weeks provided their customer with an effective solution. “We were able to identify a preferred vendor for the client,” delineates Shipp. “Our client contacted its supplier asking for a preferred agreement and achieved it, therefore resulting in millions of dollars of saving in that specific category.”

SpendHQ is an agile company and that is reflected in the delivery of their product and services. The “Humanware™” element further enhances the quality of the spend visibility outcomes delivered by the company. “We provide customized service to each customer and the result is inclusive, quick, and easy-to-use data insights,” explains Shipp. For the road ahead, the company is increasing category management offerings to include energy and labor related fields. In addition they are enhancing their vendor knowledge base and building tool based insights.