But what do these results really mean for the industry? Our P2P expert, Ewald Schaap, has examined the report and comes up with three striking insights that every professional should know.
About the research
The Hackett Group is an international consulting firm known for implementing benchmarks at many major international companies. This consultancy company regularly shares insights and benchmark data about purchase-to-pay KPIs.
This year, The Hackett Group also assessed P2P software solutions based on their benchmark data. We already know these kinds of quadrants from Gartner and Forrester. What sets The Hackett Group's assessment apart is that they use benchmark data to measure value realization. So it's interesting to follow them.
3 remarkable insights
- Using a P2P solution achieves real value
P2P Business Cases promise mountains of gold. Earlier, we wrote here this blog over and now The Hackett Group confirms this: P2P platforms actually realize value. The positive Business Cases are therefore not just empty promises. This is reflected in these points:
- Achieving purchasing savings is the main reason for starting a P2P project. The study measured a 14% spend reduction among participants. This is mainly due to directing applicants to the right ordering channels and preferred suppliers.
- Achieving productivity improvements and FTE reduction is often seen as a second goal. On average, 8% improvement was achieved, including first-time right invoice matching and automating the process from request to purchase order.
- Through user-friendly tooling, you also get a high user adoption. The survey shows that 84% of users are positive about the tool.
- When you get better insight into your spend, this results in a 40-60% improvement.
- There is a higher level of compliance when it comes to making POs, and the research concludes that there is an average of 92% PO compliance.
- No surprising names in the Value Matrix
The Hackett Group's Value MatrixTM highlights the familiar names of P2P suppliers. For example, Coupa scores highest on value realization, while SAP and Oracle offer similar capabilities.
The well-known P2P vendors dominate The Hackett Group's research. This is no surprise, because the names you read match the results of Gartner and Forrester studies.
- Recognisable challenges
In addition to the overview of the suppliers, The Hackett Group also mentions a number of recognisable challenges faced by software suppliers:
- Users often lag behind in onboarding suppliers into the software, due to complex registration processes or additional costs for suppliers.
- The standard reporting options of the P2P software often do not exactly meet the needs of the organization.
- Although the user-friendliness is of paramount importance to P2P software tools, some functionalities remain complex to use even for experienced users. There is therefore room to further improve user-friendliness.
Research points
Like Gartner and Forrester, The Hackett Group only focuses on the major international players. As a result, this research is less useful for organizations with less than €1 billion in turnover. Although the major P2P suppliers also offer solutions for these types of customers, other suppliers are more obvious for mid-market organizations.
While we have no doubts about the quality of this research, it does raise questions about The Hackett Group's independence. Indeed, the agency is also the implementation partner of a number of major P2P software suppliers.
Get more value out of your P2P tool
In a successful purchase-to-pay implementation, it's important to think carefully about your goals, the tools you use, and how you're going to implement them. With a tool alone, you won't reap the benefits of P2P.
Would you like to discuss how you can get more value out of your P2P tool? Or are you at the start of a P2P project? Please contact Ewald Schaap via ewald@s2pmore.com or 06-10926900. We are happy to help you.
