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Top Tips for a Successful Spend Analysis Project

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

In our experience of spend analysis projects for complex categories, especially marketing services and print, it can be daunting to know where to start. Follow these top tips from Claritum for a successful outcome with meaningful and actionable information.

Do something! Don’t assume this category is too complex to get the information you need.
Clearly define your objectives before you embark on your project. Decide what business decisions you want to make as a result of your spend analysis, and ensure you develop a framework that will give you the information you need.
Gain senior procurement and marketing buy-in early, as you may need a champion to push through change further down the line.
Engage independent category specific and vendor neutral experts, not generalists or those eager to win your contract.
Segment spend groups at both broader and more detailed levels. You will want to be able to roll up and drill down spend detail by carefully identified categories.
Be wary of invisible costs.

Good luck!

For more tips on conducting a successful spend analysis project download the Claritum White Paper: Spend Analysis for Complex Categories at: http://www.claritum.com/info-centre/white-papers

Tags: Complex Procurement, Print and Marketing Spend
Posted in Claritum News, Corporate News, E-procurement News, News, Print Services News, Procurement News | No Comments »

Claritum CEO to speak at CIPFA Performance Improvement Network Event

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Claritum CEO, James Samuels has been invited to speak at the CIPFA Performance Improvement Network Event “Driving Cost Reductions through Better Procurement”

The workshop is designed to give an insight into delivering savings and efficiencies in the current economic climate, and takes place in Leeds on 4th November 2010.

The event will be attended by Heads of Procurement, Finance Officers and Auditors from local authorities in the North of England.

Event organizer, Mohamed Hans (Performance Advisor at CIPFA) invited Claritum to share their practical experience of delivering savings to The London Borough of Ealing, as well as sharing the challenges, solutions and outcomes across their wider public sector client base.

James Samuels said “with such pressure to deliver savings and efficiencies, its good to see more public sector bodies sharing best practice. Our experience in this sector proves that significant, measurable and sustainable savings and efficiencies can be achieved through implementing better procurement”

Posted in Claritum News, Procurement News, Public Sector News, Sourcing News | No Comments »

How The London Borough of Ealing are planning significant savings and efficiencies

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

The London Borough of Ealing is the largest in west London, third largest of the London boroughs, with 310,000 residents, 13,365 businesses and a budget of £266 million.
With increasing pressure to deliver cost reductions and value for money across the organisation, Ealing are looking at improving processes to drive cost savings and efficiencies.
Ralph Brandhorst (senior production manager), in the central Marketing & Communications department is working with Claritum to develop systems and processes that will reduce time/costs associated with designing and producing all documents and any marketing and communications media. Within any organization there exists the hidden cost / time executives spend creating documents and ensuring they meet corporate branding guidelines, which could be reduced and used to make a greater contribution to service objectives.
To address this Claritum are proposing a complete solution for Ealing that encompasses branded templates, user portal interface, internal print management and costing and charging. This can be added to the existing Claritum deployment which ensures sourcing and procurement meet corporate requirements and deliver best value on every transaction. A combination of matrix and bid costings covers a wide range of media from photography and design to complicated mailings and distributions. An interface to internal council systems provides semi-automated financial transactions.
The bottom line benefits to Ealing are cost savings and process efficiencies. Less tangible but increasingly valuable benefits will be derived from strengthening the Ealing brand and improving the effectiveness of communications media.

Ralph Brandhorst said “We estimate the reduction in direct and indirect costs will be many times the costs of the system improvements as well as providing many non cost benefits. It is an area many public sector organisations are looking at”.

Phil Martin, Marketing Manager of Claritum said: “With the pressure on public sector spending we are delighted that Ealing are seeing real tangible efficiencies and savings from using Claritum. Our public sector clients are all reporting similar benefits and provide a best practice template for other local authorities. It is clear that the successes we have seen at our public sector clients provides proof that significant, measurable and sustainable value for money can be achieved from print, marketing and document services. We are seeing an unprecedented level of interest from councils, universities and other non for profits right across the country.”

Posted in Claritum News, Client News, E-procurement News, Procurement News, Public Sector News, Sourcing News | No Comments »

Claritum to Exhibit at Print Oasis Print Buyers Exhibition 2010

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Claritum are set to Exhibit at Print Oasis Print Buyers Conference & Exhibit, on July 19 - 20, 2010

The event, being held at the National Press Club in Washington is designed for print buyers to discover practical skills and new technologies that will help streamline the print production process and save money for your their respective organizations. Attendees be able to network with industry peers and benefit from their lessons learned as well as learning about new solutions from exhibitors and speaker alike.

Print Oasis is the premier conference focused on the needs and challenges of print communications managers, print buyers, specifiers, and production professionals. Print buyers, designers, and marketers will come together at this two-day conference and exhibition to learn about new and existing technologies and best practices for print production.

Conference Highlights:
• Special Event: Special Legislative Intensive - Learn the legislative issues that affect the pricing and availability of print; Receive once-in-a-lifetime special training on how Congress works, how to petition congress on the issues surrounding print; Training from 9:30 – noon; Meetings on Capitol Hill starting at 2 pm. Special Intensive Attendees receive a free tour of Capitol Hill and an exclusive opportunity to meet with your Congressmen. Print Buyers Online.com is writing legislation to provide tax exemptions for buying companies who purchase print in a sustainable way. Join our efforts to pass this legislation and you could save your company hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

• Print Buyer Case Studies: Tired of the same old industry talking heads? You won’t find any of those at Print Oasis 2010. This format features real-life print buying heroes and heroines who provide tangible advice you can immediately put to use. Get real-world advice from the trenches.

• Print Oasis 2010 is a “Can’t Miss”: Hear actionable advice from top print buyers and marketers who have achieved great success in these uncertain times. Learn effective strategies that you can immediately implement within your company.

In addition to the comprehensive conference format, Print Oasis is pleased to offer the following exciting benefits to conference attendees:

• Educational sessions with dynamic print buyer guest speakers and subject matter experts

• More than 40 exhibitors including printers, proofing companies, major technology firms and paper manufacturers

• Print Communications Professionals International (PCPI) members receive $100 discount, and our robust monthly Printing Trends reports.

For more information on the event, please follow the link - http://www.printoasis.com/printoasis/PrintOasis.asp

Come and see us on stand F5!

Posted in Claritum News, News, Print Services News, Product News | No Comments »

Claritum Launch new White Paper

Monday, June 7th, 2010

For most organisations complex indirect spend categories pose an opportunity for significant savings and efficiencies but are often seen as too challenging to address. Professional Services, Travel and Expense; Print and Marketing Procurement can represent substantial spends but require specialist expertise and technology platforms to achieve savings and efficiencies.

However, with cost pressure on most organisations, complex categories need to be considered a higher priority – especially as savings of 17-40% can be achieved.

Claritum have created a White Paper which focuses on one of the largest of these complex categories and is intended to demystify the approach to achieve savings and efficiencies. This is the first of a series of White Papers from Claritum addressing Print and Marketing Services Procurement.

Print and marketing services are surprisingly large spends for most organisations. Dependent on sector, this category can represent between 0.5% and 3% of revenues. According to research, expenditure on printed materials in the US totals US$167billion per annum and Euro243billion in Europe.

Yet much of this spend falls outside the visibility and control of a formal procurement program. According to Aberdeen, 80% of print is manually sourced using phone, fax and email; leading to higher than necessary costs, inefficiencies and errors.

Why? Print is typically difficult to capture and control as requirements are dispersed across the organisation and usually bought by whoever has the need. Marketing may have established long term relationships with suppliers or rely on their agencies to purchase print on their behalf – often at inflated margins. Most businesses and departments use printed materials and responsibility for buying it is often delegated to junior staff with little or no experience or understanding of what they are ordering.

Print can be a complex area of spend where minor variances in specification, date of order, production process or supplier selection having significant impacts on cost.

To download the full white paper FOR FREE please register your details here>>

Posted in Claritum News, Corporate News, Industry Research, News, Print Services News, Procurement News, Sourcing News | No Comments »

59% Of US Companies see Cost Savings and Process Efficiencies as their key priority in the procurement of print.

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Initial research conducted by Claritum has shown that 59% Of US Companies see Cost Savings and Process Efficiencies as their key priority in the procurement of print.

Claritum (in conjunction with UK Trade and Industry) surveyed over 200 US Companies with a view to better understand their views on the procurement of indirect and complex categories.
The majority of those who responded (87%) spend between $3 and $10million on complex, indirect categories such as print and related services.

73% from the returned sample believe that effective print buying is just as important as any other indirect spend.

When asked about how print is purchased within their organisation, 68% were still using manual processes by either a central procurement function or the individual who has the need, with only 16% using and automated ERP or procurement platform.

The majority of companies indicated that cost saving and reducing the over all indirect spend (32%) as their top priority. Improved efficiency and effectiveness was also important (27%)

41% stated that granular/real-time visibility of indirect spends was “Very Important” where as 29% thought cost saving through competitive bidding was “Very Important”

72% felt cost savings through process automation was “Somewhat Important”

However 62% believed that monitoring buyer and supplier performance was “Medium to less important”

The survey is still available to complete, For Companies still wishing to take part, please follow the link - http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=fnrx31na32o8hf9726068

Posted in Claritum News, E-procurement News, Industry Research, News, Print Services News, Procurement News, Sourcing News | No Comments »

Business Intelligence Software and Cloud Computing

Friday, April 16th, 2010

The new frontier for BI software appears to be in the cloud. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) aspect of cloud computing is rapidly creating a new wave of Business Intelligence software benefits and challenges.

BI software on a SaaS basis has the ability to provide BI capabilities to a large number of staff rapidly at a low cost.

Howard Dresner, principal of Dresner Advisory Services and the man who coined the phrase Business Intelligence, said that “with a SaaS approach to BI, businesses can deploy a basic BI application in a day, compared with six or more months required to develop and deploy on-premise solutions. Still, implementing either a cloud-based point solution or an entire suite with on-premise legacy systems is not a trivial affair”.

Regardless, with huge demand, many new BI software cloud vendors have launched in the past five years. Dozens of start-ups have attracted venture capital along with paying customers. They run the gamut from providing full BI suites to point solutions for customer analytics, performance management, workforce analysis and other tasks. And more are expected to launch this year. The established, legacy BI software players aren’t sitting on their haunches either. They’re also moving to offer hosted versions of their apps.

Claritum has recently partnered with MicroStrategy software to provide support for improved decision-making through realtime business intelligence,
Under this agreement, Claritum’s users can seamlessly use the Best of Breed Business Intelligence platform including intuitive management reporting, interactive performance dashboards and powerful analytics.

Posted in Claritum News, Corporate News, News, Product News, SaaS News | 1 Comment »

Claritum to Launch “Claritum Connect”

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Claritum are pleased to announce the imminent launch of “Claritum Connect” a one-stop online resource for all of their Clients and Partners, encompassing customer support, best practice guides, training manuals and Feature Request (Ideas) Board.

Claritum Connect is a central online portal that customers can access with a single log-in. It currently offers customer support, best practice guides and training materials. Coming in Q3 of 2010 will be online communities to connect with other Claritum customers and to also facilitate customer branding of their portals. The available resources will include:

• Customer Support & Reporting – An enhanced customer support option that makes it easy for customers to create, update, track and report on customer support cases via the Web.

• Knowledge Library – A solutions library that includes enhanced searching capabilities on a wealth of knowledge including product information, and training manuals and materials.

• Best Practices – A library of best practice guides, webcasts, presentations, case studies, white papers and industry news that provide a clear map to ensure customers get the greatest value out of their solutions including the most advanced capabilities.

• Community - An online ideas board (feature enhancements module, where customers can post new feature requests and vote on existing feature requests), solutions tips, news and updates, as well as upcoming events.

Posted in Claritum News, Client News, News, Product News | 2 Comments »

SaaS BI will be big in 2010

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Mounting evidence suggests that in 2010, the hottest segment in BI (business intelligence) software will revolve around offerings delivered from the cloud, thanks to increased product sophistication, strained IT budgets and other factors.

A new IDC report finds the SaaS BI market will experience triple the growth of the market overall, soaring at a compound annual growth rate of 22.4 percent through 2013, although actual revenue totals will remain small compared to on-premise BI applications.

There are plenty of good reasons to adopt SaaS (software as a service) BI, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

It can get BI tools to typically under-served users, such as front-office workers, a lot faster, analyst Boris Evelson wrote. “The model may also become more attractive as enterprises turn to on-demand software for other needs, such as CRM (customer relationship management).

“The more applications (and therefore BI data sources) are moved into the cloud, the fewer reasons there may be to build and operate BI applications in-house,”

Claritum has recently partnered with MicroStrategy software to provide support for improved decision-making through realtime business intelligence,

Under this agreement, Claritum’s users can seamlessly use the Best of Breed Business Intelligence platform including intuitive management reporting, interactive performance dashboards and powerful analytics.

Posted in Claritum News, Industry Research, News, Product News, SaaS News | No Comments »

Claritum set for winter release

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Details of Claritum’s Winter 2009 Release have been announced.

Service Hub
Service Hub ensures users maximise return on investment from Claritum and benefit from an increasingly wide range of fully integrated software capabilities and best of breed services. Within the Service Hub, key modules and configuration options that are available, Users can also explore additional features and assess whether they are suitable for their organisation.
Not only that, Service Hub is the place to go for professional and education services such as training and consulting services.

User Interface Improvements
As Claritum continues to focus on combining increasingly powerful capabilities with an improved user experience, the Winter09 release includes a series of User Interface improvements. Such as a new, simpler side menu, improved colour scheme and page layouts, more on screen alerts and prompts and better searching and filtering capabilities.

Process Optimisation
Claritum continues to focus on process improvements to help users deliver more value from their Claritum deployment. Additionally, our team constantly reviews and improved system performance to ensure the system will perform optimally leading to even better user experience and less downtime.

Internationalisation
As Claritum continues to grow its international client base, the system can be now deployed for use in most countries with Latin based alphabets.

Localisation
For organisations with users accessing Claritum across the world, we have improved the localisation capabilities. Now individual users can configure their system to their own time zones, use local date, number and address formats suitable to their location. ISO (metric) and imperial sizes can also be configured within the system.

Management Reporting (Stage 1)
Following a comprehensive review of Claritum’s management reporting, many users will be aware of Claritum’s powerful Business Intelligence capability is coming soon!
As an interim measure, or for users wishing to continue using the current reporting functionality, we have rationalised the reports available to dramatically improve data quality and data availability.

Supplier Management
In response to feedback from both buyers and suppliers, Claritum is providing more and more capabilities for suppliers. Not only will this approach deliver further process optimisation but ensure supplier realise tangible benefits from Claritum to their business.

Powerful User Education Resources
From the Winter09 release your users will have access to a comprehensive range of Quick Start Guides, Webcasts and a Knowledge Bank of useful information.

Enhanced Security
Security of data is always paramount to Claritum, so we’re increasing the level of security that comes as standard within the deployment. From the point of release onwards, all usage of the system will be secured using the highest industry-standard encryption available - this is the same level of protection offered by online banks and financial institutions.

Looking Forward - Spring 2010 Release

Enterprise Level Business Intelligence - Coming Soon!
From the Spring 2010 release, users will have the option to add powerful and real time management reporting and onscreen dashboards to the Claritum system.
With Claritum’s improved BI capabilities, users can analyse your data, build their own reports and dashboards and publish information in powerful onscreen reports or timed emails.
This will provide a unique and granular insight into organisations print spend, system usage and supply chain to ensure compliance to best practice, streamline operations and empower your users and executives to make informed business decisions with real time data.

Posted in Claritum News, News, Product News | 4 Comments »