Community Data Is Critical To Effective Business Spend Management Benchmarking

Avik Ghosh
Avik Ghosh
Managing Director, Strategic Analytics & Operations, Coupa Software

Avik Ghosh is a member of the Business Value Engineering team and leads Coupa’s Value Excellence Center. In his past professional experience in management consulting and structural engineering, Avik leveraged statistical analysis, probabilistic modeling, and data science to deliver real-world solutions. Avik holds an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and an M.S. in Structural Engineering & Geomechanics from Stanford University and currently resides in Southern California.

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Community Data Is Critical To Effective Business Spend Management Benchmarking

We know that comparing our spend performance to others in our industry offers substantial value. When we compare our company’s performance to reliable industry benchmarks, we can both identify savings opportunities and improve our efficiencies across source-to-contract, procure-to-pay, and expense management processes. 

The Challenge with Business Spend Benchmarking
To date, the problem behind spend management benchmarking has been that most traditional B2B industry benchmarks rely on self-reported data that is largely subjective. We believe that such traditional approaches are inherently limited due to the lack of transactional level data and inconsistency in measurement. Without accurate benchmark data, it is challenging to build a defensible business case that supports initiatives to improve spend management, and, more importantly, measure the success of such initiatives. 

How Does Your Organization Compare Across Core BSM Processes?
Explore key business spend process performance indicators from reliable community-driven benchmarks to see where you stand with the recently-released Coupa Benchmarking Report

Benchmarks Based on Actual Spend, Not Self-Reported Numbers
In contrast to traditional sources of benchmark data, Coupa offers benchmarks that are based on the actual (yet anonymously tracked) spend transactions and processing activity across hundreds of customers transacting through the platform. Uniquely leveraging Coupa’s Community Intelligence across nearly US$1.5 trillion in global business spend, Coupa benchmarks span key metrics including pre-approved spend, match rates, cycle times, policy compliance, on-contract spend, estimated savings capture, percentage of electronic invoices, and more. All Coupa benchmarks are based on actual spend transactions which are regularly updated.

Accurate Benchmarks Enable You to Discover Opportunities for Improvement
Using community-driven benchmarks to evaluate your performance allows you to uncover ways to realize measurable business value by reducing hard costs, reducing risk through increased control and compliance, and improving operational efficiency. 

Coupa’s benchmarks offer valuable insights into your:

  • Spend Optimization: How are you optimizing spend to get the best rates and savings?
  • Digitization: How successful have you been in digitizing your BSM processes?
  • Risk Management: How effectively are you mitigating risk through BSM?
  • Process Efficiency: How efficient are your transactional processes for BSM?

When organizations decide to embark on a business spend management initiative, one of the first things they need to do is define what success looks like, and how it should be measured. Reliable benchmarks are critical for this, and the benchmarks presented in Coupa’s report can help organizations realistically and reliably set very specific and measurable targets. 

How Do You Compare to Global Industry Leaders Across Core BSM Processes?
Without reliable benchmarks, you don’t really know what to focus on.  With accurate, trustworthy benchmarks that are based on actual spend data from industry peers, you can feel confidently informed and empowered, and you have a business case with hard data to convince others in the organization of the value opportunity available.

Measure your source-to-contract, procure-to-pay, and expense management success by exploring key performance indicators across four core business spend processes with Coupa’s Benchmarking Report

Avik Ghosh is Managing Director, Strategic Analytics & Operations at Coupa Software and is a member of the Business Value Engineering team, leading Coupa’s Value Excellence Center. In his past professional experience in management consulting and structural engineering, Avik leveraged statistical analysis, probabilistic modeling, and data science to deliver real-world solutions. Avik holds an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and an M.S. in Structural Engineering & Geomechanics from Stanford University and currently resides in Southern California.