TECHNOLOGY
“ Without data , it is going to be hard to make decisions , so having holistic visibility into your spend data is important ”
SAURABH GUPTA PRESIDENT OF RESEARCH AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS , HFS RESEARCH
will look at what the requirements are for a laptop to do a certain job ; it needs to have XYZ kind of specifications . Then some form of spend analysis will be conducted to determine how many laptops could be required , as well as category management to understand the difference between the different providers - who ’ s good , who ’ s bad , cost etc . Then a request for proposal ( RFP ) will be launched for the various potential vendors selected . After the final selection , the organisation will end up with a contract
for that vendor . So far , the organisation has not bought anything . They have simply settled with the contract of , ‘ this is my preferred vendor to provide me with these sorts of goods ’. That is the S2C process .”
“ So the second part - P2P - follows S2C , so if someone in the organisation says ‘ hey , I need a laptop ’ the organisation will have some sort of catalogue of vendors already contracted which you can ‘ buy now ’ from . Now sometimes your organisation will need to create a purchase order for that . You will send the purchase order to the vendor , they ship the materials to you , you receive them alongside an invoice , and then you pay the invoice . So that is the P2P process .”
“ This is a very simple description of S2P . The laptop is a very , very simple category , but imagine this can become
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