Why Spend Under Management Should Be a Culture, Not a Goal

Search for the term “Spend Under Management” and you’ll find countless articles on how you can manage a higher percentage of your spend in a few simple steps. These articles are certainly helpful to teams managing less than 64.9% of their spend, the industry average, but they miss a key point: spend under management isn’t a goal, it’s a culture.

Like the outcomes of making operational excellence a core value, the results of treating spend under management as a raison d’etre speak for themselves. According to Ardent Partners, the best procurement teams confidently manage an astounding 91.5% of their organization’s spend! In contrast, all other organizations average a little over 50%, and according to our recent study with Procurious, only around 49.7% of them report spend under management as a KPI.

The good news is that you can initiate a best-in-class spend management culture in your organization. Here are three ways to make the shift.