Portcos Archives - PREMIKATI

Oct 12

Spend Analytics At The Private Equity Level Are Critical To Future Success

By Parker Sproul Private Equity No Comments

Keeping spend analysis at the portfolio company level results in data silos, missed savings opportunities, decreased negotiating power, increased compliance risks, and a negatively impacted valuation and EBITDA figures at the private equity level. Choosing a PE-level marketplace can eliminate these issues as well as provide long-term strategic perks that come with intelligent spend.

Spend analytics at the private equity level are critical to continued success. Running a business without data is a real shot in the dark—financial data being among the riskiest options to neglect. Data collection and analysis continue to reign supreme as a major business initiative in nearly all industries and sectors across the globe. Data silos are being eroded. Data is not only being shared between departments, but between brands, sometimes as a primary form of partnership. Continuing with business in the ‘20s without a comprehensive data analysis strategy nearly guarantees that your companies will soon be out of the game, replaced by spry, agile companies who blend numbers and instinct into something that grows like wildfire.

Choosing the strategy that best suits your business structure is an important step toward spend visibility. In this article, we will discuss spend analysis at the private equity and portfolio company levels.

Current State of Spend Analytics Across Portcos

Current processes for spend analysis across portcos today are likely to look like this:

Right, nothing. There’s no process. Portco spend analysis is usually siloed within the portfolio companies themselves, with no analysis of note at the private equity level. If anything exists at all, it’s probably being done manually via XLS—a wildly inefficient method with poor results compared to its alternatives. To swing the other direction, there may be no spend analysis going on whatsoever at either the portco or PE level, a high risk in 2020.

Problems With Keeping Spend Analysis at the Portfolio Company Level

If spend analysis is only happening at the portco level, then, by nature, there is no PE-wide spend visibility that reaches across portcos. As with siloed approaches in other operational aspects of business, there are costs that come with that level of “convenience.”

Without PE-wide spend visibility, there is also a loss of leverage—leverage which turns immediately into savings—during negotiations and multiple vendor communications.

This results in a loss of 3-5% of spend analyzed.

Benefits Of Analyzing Spend at The Private Equity Level

At its foundation, analyzing spend at the PE level offers a clearer picture into what is being purchased and from whom. With this information opens the opportunity to rationalize vendors and standardize, identify savings potential, and spot new sourcing opportunities.

At a deeper level, developing a spend analysis strategy that looks at all portcos can have a notable benefit on valuation and EBITDA figures, even within months of implementation. Having real-time spend analysis also offers clear visibility into rogue spend so that compliance issues can be tamped out swiftly before major damage is incurred. PE-level spend analysis also lays a solid framework for category management initiatives which are increasing in importance in the PE environment. Spend analysis underpins successful, optimized procurement strategies of all varieties.

How The Private Marketplace Model Enhances PE-Level Spend Analysis

Rather than organizations adopting purchasing software one at a time in a siloed manner that negates savings opportunities, a private marketplace can improve PE spend analysis opportunities. A PE Owned Marketplace, underpinned by SAP Ariba, is a solution that allows for centralized control with portco-level authority, simple methods to turn on/off portcos as they are acquired or sold, and PE-level-led purchasing that allows for maximization of savings. With immediate spend visibility and additional savings opportunities, businesses can expect to achieve rapid savings for near-instantaneous ROI plus long-term strategic perks.

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Oct 12

Private Equity Firms Gain Quick Wins With Optimized Sourcing

By Parker Sproul Private Equity No Comments

Sourcing at the private equity level offers maximized savings via leveraged buying power, the ability to standardize processes and best practices, increase spend visibility and analysis capacities, and improve valuation and EBITDA figures.

Why source everything separately across each individual portfolio company when private equity-level sourcing can increase rate of return, maximize savings, efficientize SOPs, and lead to insightful spend analysis across all organizations? Prior procurement platforms kept power at the portco level, but PE firms have a notable leg up in their sourcing efforts when they can utilize their full, leveraged buying power, resulting in quick, sizable savings.

Current State of Sourcing Across Portcos

In many PE scenarios, all sourcing is executed at the portfolio company level—there is no PE-level control whatsoever. This caution-to-the-wind approach results in a lot of lost savings and opportunities. Of these PE-firms that do not utilize a more inclusive strategy, there is often mounting pressure to generate good returns, and procurement can be seen as a quick win for savings with sizable long-term potential as well. While some portcos may seek to retain autonomy in procurement, insightful spend analysis figures and a well-planned roadmap can often combine to make a compelling argument for PE-led sourcing.

Problems With Keeping Sourcing at the Portfolio Company Level

When sourcing is only happening at the portfolio company level, there is a tremendous hit to savings potential as well as a higher likelihood of siloed data practices which open the company to a wide range of risks and other detriments. When portcos retain full autonomy in sourcing, this usually results in:

Lack of aggregated spend across portcos
Lack of standardization of sourcing processes and best practices
Overpayment due to minimized savings and potential discounts.

In terms of savings lost, this can equate to 9-16% per event. This lack of visibility and reduction in savings is often enough for many PE firms to consider moving sourcing to the PE level, because it can result in fast and impactful ROI.

Benefits Of Sourcing at The Private Equity Level

How do things change when sourcing moves from the portco level to the private equity level? The magic word of the day is “leveraged buying power.” Sourcing at the PE level offers a major boost attaining the best possible prices from vendors. Partner-led execution of sourcing events ensure maximized savings that hinge upon best practices.

Through the combination of spend analysis and sourcing at the PE level, private equity firms can immediately increase visibility, reduce compliance risks, boost leveraged buying power to negotiate the best deals, and standardize sourcing processes across the board—all of which add up to notable savings.

How The Private Marketplace Model Enhances PE-Level Sourcing

To nix the siloed approach to procurement across portcos, PE firms can adopt a private marketplace model as part of a greater e-procurement strategy. With Premikati Marketplace, PEs can take advantage of PE-negotiated contracts and catalogs while utilizing the Private Equity Marketplace underpinned by SAP Ariba. No matter the current state of e-procurement technology within organizations at the start, Premikati Marketplace is a quick-to-deploy, lightweight solution with lighting-fast time to ROI. Plus, it can easily integrate into pre-existing procurement processes for fast adoption—with change management services provided to each portco to ease the transformation.

This PE-level option offers the ability to quickly turn on or off portcos as they are acquired or sold, retain centralized control with portco-level authority, and numerous ways to maximize savings across all participating organizations. Using this sourcing approach comes with the additional benefit of deep spend analysis at the PE-level which has been known to boost valuation and EBITDA figures even after only a short duration of use.