SPEND ANALYTICS

1. New: Automated Insights

The system now automatically generates a range of targeted Insights identifying actionable savings opportunities.  Each Insight includes an estimated potential Savings amount calculated from the spend data and are grouped into opportunity Types according to the next best action users can take to drive savings, and are supported by the underlying data that defines the Insight, typically at the individual items level.

1.1. Insight Confidence Level

The Insights are color-coded to indicate the confidence level of the estimated savings and are grouped into higher confidence Targeted Insights as well as Industry Benchmark Insights that reflect typical industry norms.

1.2. Insight Opportunity Types

Insights are mapped into specific Savings Opportunity types which identify the types of actions that can be taken to realize the savings potential.

Examples include opportunities for re-negotiating consolidated spend surfaced through supplier familying and like-category spend, alternative ordering strategies to better use existing pricing, contract spend leakage gaps through to purchased price variance findings and analytics as well as payment terms optimization options to improve cashflow.

1.3. Insight Explainers

The system states the estimated savings assumptions used to generate the Insight valuation. For some Insights, what-if capabilities provide interactive exploration with user-selected parameters.

Each Insight also includes the specific data items in scope for the Insight at the subcategory and/or item level and their specific contribution to the unrealized opportunity or savings profile.

2. New: Easy Access User Experience

The User Experience in this release provides a revised approach to dashboard presentation and simplifies the ability for users to manage filtering across differing KPIs and data views.

2.1. Key Usability Improvements

• Common filtering options make it easier for users to drill down thru dashboards, select specific subset views and/or export the associated data detail.
• Dashboard views include Summary KPI values to provide spend context and spark line graphics to summarize the recent spend trend patterns and provide better context for the user.
• Interactive performance has been significantly improved so that dashboards appear faster and importantly, the associated data and drill-down details can be quickly explored
• Additional chart types such as heat maps provide better communication of spend patterns for multi-dimensional data and allow easy drill-down to the items of interest

3. New: Purchase Price Variance Insight & Analytics

A powerful purchase price variance (PPV) analyzer assesses the hidden savings opportunity (or unrealized savings) arising from inconsistent item-level pricing over time or across locations, suppliers. As the number of variance situations can be complicated, tailored analytics and inspection views are provided to allow detailed inspection of the different cases.

For PPV, users can:

• Explore the variance patterns across different dimensions such as view by Location, Purchase Frequency or spend scale
• Narrow the scope of variance occurrences to further examine how- or low-variance situations
• Using a heatmap, users can quickly view the price variance over time for a specific item or spend area
• Drill down to the individual item level to see First and Last Prices Paid along with the degree of variance and total spend involved

4. Improved Analytics

• Dashboards, such as the Payment Term view, provide for in-context simulation to evaluate the CashFlow Improvement Opportunity against user-driven assumptions
• The head- and tail-spend concentration across categories, locations can be better understood through a dashboard which identifies the spend concentration pattern
• The Contracts view illuminates contract leakage and maverick spending patterns and provides tracking for the actual vs target contracted spend
• A smart chart explores the extent to which suppliers are used in common across locations for or within specific spend categories so that fragmentation issues can be addressed

PROCURE-TO-PAY

1. New: Sole-Sourced RFQ Support with Buyer Assistant

Requesters can include a recommendation to treat a Spot Buy (line item) as sole-sourced when submitting a request.  A Buyer can then choose to confirm the intent to process the RFQ as Sole-sourced during the VALIDATE or DRAFT steps; this will then override the Spot Buy policy rules that would otherwise apply (i.e. to allow Publishing the award to only a single supplier). The ability for Buyers to apply this override is configurable (Location level).

Buyer Assistant recommendations are then adjusted for Sole-Sourced RFQ line- items resulting in automatic flow to PUBLISH (Auto-Pilot mode) if a valid supplier is available.

2. New: Requester Empowerment for Auto-Approval

This capability allows Requesters to be empowered to place orders – for both Catalog (REQ) and non-Catalog (RFQ) items – that will be automatically processed without requiring an Approval.

Several controls and configurability options are provided to appropriately control or enable this mode of operation at the Customer and Location level, with Approval Bypass celling amounts specified at the Sub-Category level. These entitlements can then be granted to specific Requesters and the system will automatically split applicable line-items when necessary within a shopping cart so they can be routed appropriately.

With the conditional optimization of approval workflow, any request under a pre-configured dollar amount can be system-approved (i.e. auto-approved). Additionally, the total amount of orders than can be auto-approved in a period can be controlled.

3. New: Contract Awareness & Compliance

With Xeeva Sourcing and Contracts, sourcing events can be converted into new structured contract agreements or revisions. Price Agreements and expirations in Procurement can then be controlled and updated by this Contract generation or revision process so that the Contract behaves as the master to ensure aligned procurement execution.

Configurability options determine if Price Agreements are controlled solely by Contracts and/or can be edited within Procurement by empowered users.

3.1. Spend-by-Contract reporting

Price Agreements can optionally include a Contract Id and/or link, which provides controlling authority referencing. The relevant fields are visible to catalog administrators and included on appropriate reports, so that spend-by-contract visibility is available at a line level.

This feature can be used independently of Xeeva Contracts, to correlate with documents in other systems or for “paper” contracts.

4. Enhanced Punch-Out Support

Enhancements to the Punch-out process provide improved cXML support for PO management and configurability for broader vendor support, including Amazon Business (US and Europe).

Additionally, it is now easier for Administrators to configure, test and deploy punchouts and to control the PO Acknowledgement and Acceptance modes, which vary by vendor.

5. Enhancements

5.1. Blanket PO Enhancements

5.1.1. New: Hide quantity and amount fields for suppliers in a BPO

Customers can now opt to have hide all price and quantity related fields for supplier on a BPO header, to avoid any price or quantity commitments. Configuration for the same is available at customer level as shown below (be default disabled):

5.1.2. New: Sub-category sensitivity on BPO lines

Category hierarchy selection on BPO line items can now be type sensitive i.e. whether a line is material or service type. BPO line item addition forms show category hierarchy based on the type of form.

5.2. Localized Time Zones

User screens are now localized to the User’s personal time-zone preference set via their Profile.

5.3. PO Consolidation

Consolidation has been improved for Inventory and Shopping cart scenarios.

Inventory replenishment order generation is configurable to result in fewer (small) PO.s to suppliers.

Shopping Carts that have been split for approval or procurement actions are re-consolidated to reduce by-supplier PO proliferation, subject to various business rules

5.4. Add-to-Catalog at Award time can be Automatic or Selective.

Improved controls and Buyer options are available to manage if or when Spot Buy items are added to the Catalog automatically or when Buyers choose.

6. Usability Improvements

6.1. Spot Buy Award Grid highlights proxy responses

The Award grid for buyer provides visual indication to show the individual user’s name who completed the response. This will help clarify Proxy Responses buyers to know whether a response was completed by themselves or supplier and improve audit compliance.

6.2. Buyer Dashboard Improvements

Several usability improvements are included with this release:

• Quote due date display (Active RFQ)
• Unclaimed RFQ filter
• ALL RFQ option
• Order ID filters

Additional Information

Please contact your Xeeva representative or Xeeva Results Desk for further information.