FinTech Magazine - September 2022 | Page 34

SMBC GROUP

Data

Driven Procurement : The SMBC Strategy
ago , when all invoices were processed manually . We ’ ve loaded more than 2,500 contracts into Coupa , with a steady number of new contracts authored and approved through Coupa and executed through DocuSign every day .”
“ Separately , we ’ ve established a supplier spend analytics data lake with PowerBI dashboards that allows us to quickly and easily assess spend across multiple regions , businesses , and spend categories .”
The importance of data to the procurement process “ Data is exceptionally important to everything we do ,” says Wadsworth . “ As Peter Drucker , a leading management consultant and renowned author , once said , ‘ you can ’ t manage what you can ’ t measure ,’”
“ When I first joined SMBC in 2020 , it was important to understand the existing supplier base and historical spend . A simple spend report by business and high-level spend categories was a manual and time- intensive exercise , pulling data from six ERPs ( Enterprise Resource Planning systems ), ten general ledgers , filtering , rationalising the data , and , finally , producing a simple PPT spend chart .”
Access to good , accurate data in a timely way is critical to making informed business and purchasing decisions . Wadsworth says : “ Given our long implementation runway with Coupa combined with the need to have quick and easy access to spend data across the regions , I partnered with Visionet

“ Data is exceptionally important to everything we do ”

FRANK WADSWORTH MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER , SMBC AMERICAS DIVISION
34 September 2022