Large opportunities in print spend

Add comment February 8th, 2007 David Bush - Iasta

While reviewing a recent Aberdeen study - Category Spend Management: Print and Print Services, I wanted to call out some interesting items. The executive summary begins:

Enterprises report that their top strategic procurement action is the continuous effort to aggregate and centralize enterprise-wide spending. With the category of print specifically, Aberdeen has found that many enterprises do not leverage volume discounts but instead continue to engage multiple print suppliers and utilize ad-hoc purchasing methods that may vary in different business units or regions. A centralized approach also allows for improved monitoring and tracking of purchases. We found that on average, 41% of print is purchased off-contract, leading to significant lost savings opportunities.

Obviously, that speaks for itself and I think is very typical of this spend category. Some things I have noticed within print projects are:

• Print can be extremely complicated to build into a sourcing event, especially when dealing with huge numbers of line items and alternative printing options. Many times, consultants are brought in to develop strategy and execution of this process.
• Print is frequently a protected category in an organization, many times being “sourced” by individual departments or flowing through Marketing. There is also a large amount of supplier protection in this category when purchasing is not involved.
• Some of the most successful reverse auctions I have ever witnessed have been in print with savings north of 50% not uncommon.

Specifically, the report is 24 pages long with many aspects of print strategy discussed, including: mapping out and building process, increasing collaboration, and measure/report savings and performance. They also mention that “best in class enterprises are able to achieve significantly better results and on average, are sourcing and procuring 64% of their print online.” This includes using e-Sourcing technology for larger spends.

I think this is a must read for any organization that has a significant spend in print and plans to formally address it.

Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology