Aberdeen Report: Best Practices to Gain Strategic Insights from Company Spend Data

As the uncertainty amidst the global pandemic and economic disruption continues into 2021, companies need to use every tool at their disposal to support financial decision-making. Spend visibility in a company is extremely valuable for enabling data-driven decisions, but many companies struggle to manage spend information and maintain data accuracy. Best-in-Class companies are driving productivity and even profitability in the current economy by connecting disparate sources of spend data for greater access and visibility into company spending.

A recent study by Aberdeen of 606 companies from around the globe shows that Best-in-Class performers are managing 74% of company spend using digital expense and invoice management technology – with most having integrated these systems with back-end ERP and other finance and accounting tools. In addition to managing cash, improving budget forecasting, and categorising spend, these companies are 31% more likely to be using that data to track and manage budgets – helping to redirect money to top business priorities.

In fact, best-in-class companies are 18% to 34% more likely to report improvements in:

• Budget visibility
• Workforce productivity
• Customer satisfaction
• Speed of decision-making
• Data sharing and collaboration
• Employee trust in data
• Simplified analytics

The result:

Over the past two years, best-in-class companies reported improvements of more than 26.1% in productivity and 24.3% in profitability – compared to -2.4% and -1.7% for others.

In 2021, the future regarding the pandemic and economy will remain unknown. Thus, companies must prepare themselves to scale their operations accordingly and focus on what they can control. As competition increases, it will be those companies that leverage company spend data for managing cash flow, tracking / managing budget, and auditing for budget compliance that will effectively set themselves up for success. Future-proofing a business is essential in today’s economy.

Read the full report to find out more about how digital spend and budget management has helped top companies thrive and Aberdeen recommendations for comprehensively managing company spend established by Best-in-Class companies to achieve superior results.