Claritum CEO Speaks at Print Oasis Print Buyers Conference in Washington

July 27th, 2010

Claritum exhibited at the Print Oasis Print Buyers Conference last week, which was held being held at the National Press Club in Washington DC and was  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  were able to network with industry peers and benefit from their lessons learned as well as  learning about new solutions from exhibitors and speakers 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 come together at this two-day conference and exhibition to learn about new and existing technologies and best practices for print production.

 

At the event Claritum CEO, James Samuels,introduced Claritum to the wider US audience, as well as outlining the use of technology to improve sourcing and procurement within the print category.

CEO James Samuels Addresses the Print Oasis Audience

CEO James Samuels Addresses the Print Oasis Audience

 Samuels said “Increasingly print buyers are under pressure to not just demonstrate savings and efficiencies but are being asked to manage more and more categories of expenditure. Without the tools (such as Claritum’s Sourcing Pro) to evidence this optimized performance, CFOs and CPOs may consider outsourcing to a managed service provider. As Print buyers are now being asked to manage more categories of spend, the use of sourcing and procurement technologies can only aid this process”

 
Claritum Marketing Manager, Phil Martin said “The US is an important market for us. Our US enterprise clients are seeing great benefits from our solutions and this event proves there is significant demand from a wider market place. The event has provided Claritum with many new potential clients and partners which we will following up with in the coming weeks, we would like to thank Suzanne Morgan and Print Buyers Online team for the opportunity of introducing our services and for putting on this great event”
 

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

European businesses seeing benefits of SaaS

July 8th, 2010

European businesses are increasingly seeing the potential benefits of cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS), according to a new study.

Research by analyst firm IDC (www.idc.com) has found that 60 per cent of businesses expect to be at least planning a migration to cloud services, with cost savings and efficiency as the main incentives.

Furthermore, it has been shown that SaaS will help drive the cloud grow from being worth £10.7 billion globally to £27 billion by 2013.

Posted in Corporate News, Industry Research, SaaS News | No Comments »

Claritum to Exhibit at Print Oasis Print Buyers Exhibition 2010

June 18th, 2010

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

oasis

 

 

 

 

 

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

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 »

SaaS going ‘mainstream’

May 7th, 2010

The growing value of software as a service (SaaS) to businesses has been highlighted once again by a prominent media organisation.

In an article for the BBC, business editor Tim Weber claims that cloud computing and SaaS is going ‘mainstream’ and that organisations are seeing it as a way of cutting their capital expenditure.

Mr Weber also lays out the main reasons for the popularity of SaaS, including the cost-effectiveness, the scalability, mobility and the fact that services are always kept up to date.

The author adds: “Cloud computing can be applied nearly anywhere - the small retailer that needs a secure e-commerce website quickly and cheaply, the ferry operator that has huge computing spikes in May and June while 90 per cent of its IT system idle the rest of the year or the fire service that needs extra computing power to predict the movement of forest fires during the summer.”

Businesses reluctant about adopting SaaS were recently advised to dip their feet in the water first by trying non-critical services.

 

Posted in Corporate News, Industry Research, News, SaaS News | No Comments »

Buyers show lack of faith in spend data

May 7th, 2010

Just under one-third of purchasers have a high degree of confidence in the data that measures their spending, according to a report.

In a survey of 150 procurement professionals by procurement technology firm Rosslyn Analytics, only 28 per cent of buyers said they believed their spend data was “complete and accurate”.

In addition, 31 per cent of respondents had a low level of confidence that the information was accurate enough for decision-making purposes. Forty per cent had a medium level of confidence.

“With recent advances in technology including automated data extraction, categorisation and enrichment services, it shocks me that procurement continues to have inadequate spend data,” said Rosslyn Analytics CEO Charles Clark.
“The sooner procurement professionals resolve data quality concerns, the sooner they will be able to focus on the serious business of sustainable cost savings.”

The report also found that 40 per cent of respondents used a third-party provider to gain additional information from available data.

Claritum’s data driven spend analysis program enables our Client’s to gain granular insight into their spend, or monitor performance of a current outsourcing arrangement, in order to achieve significant, measurable and sustainable savings and efficiencies.

Posted in Corporate News, Industry Research, News, Procurement News | No Comments »

SaaS growing among SMBs, says Microsoft

May 7th, 2010

The findings of a new survey by Microsoft suggests the number of small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) using software as a service (SaaS) is continuing to rise.

According to the company’s second annual Microsoft SMB/Partner Insight Report, 12 per cent of SMBs now use SaaS solutions, compared to ten per cent a year ago.

It is also predicted by the firm’s partners that, by the end of this year, 19 per cent of these businesses will have at least some sort of solution in place.

Birger Steen, vice president of small and medium business at Microsoft, said: “The most competitive SMBs are investing in IT that will not only help protect and strengthen their business, but prepare them for success when economic conditions improve.”

Forrester Research recently reported that the global IT market will grow by 7.7 per cent this year, partly driven by SaaS.

Posted in Corporate News, Industry Research, News, SaaS News | No Comments »

Companies told to analyse spend to save money,

April 30th, 2010

Supply Management: Organisations are missing out on cost savings because of inadequate spend analysis, a report has found.

“Strategic spend visibility: Untapped potential for cost reduction” (sponsored by Rosslyn Analytics), examined the impact of spend visibility and analysis on companies’ returns. It estimated the potential losses from poor practices to be millions of dollars in terms of unrealised cost savings.

It highlighted that companies should adopt a more strategic and organisation-wide approach to spend visibility to not only incorporate transparency of what is bought and from whom, but also identification, tracking, reporting and analysis.

This should not solely be the remit of procurement and supply chain management, the report said, but become practice in other departments including finance, HR, IT, marketing and legal. This would enable companies to catch savings opportunities that might otherwise have been missed.

For example, savings from strategic sourcing could be increased by up to 12 per cent with better spend analysis, according to the report. It could also help get more spend under the control of procurement, potentially from 25 per cent to more than 75 per cent, and result in better control of maverick spending and greater contract compliance.
The report estimates that, on average, 80 per cent of organisations’ spending is with less than 20 per cent of its suppliers. A better understanding of where money goes could lead to consolidation of the supply base, which in turn could generate savings. In addition, improved spend visibility could facilitate better risk analysis by, for example, identifying potential disruptions to the supply chain as a result of being overly dependent on a single source of supply.

Claritum’s data driven spend analysis program enables Their Client’s to gain granular insight into their spend, or monitor performance of a current outsourcing arrangement, in order to achieve significant, measurable and sustainable savings and efficiencies.

Spend Analysis can be provided as a stand alone engagement, but when combined with Claritum’s sourcing and supplier management tools, client’s realise significant, measurable and sustainable savings, without compromising quality or performance.

Posted in Corporate News, Industry Research, 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.

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

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 »

« Older Entries