782: Measuring What Matters: Transforming Services Spend Management W/ Gordon Donovan

“When we start thinking about and putting the end customer at the center of everything we do, it changes our perception of what’s important and therefore what we measure in the outputs from our contracts.” Gordon Donovan, Vice President Research - Procurement & External Workforce, SAP

Services spend makes up a large, strategic part of the value procurement provides to the business. But, it’s also an area that’s ripe for improvement. 

Building off of services spend management research we started in 2023 with SAP, we recently updated the survey data, gathering timely new perspectives on how procurement can drive greater value through services spend by collaborating with the business and optimizing processes.

In this episode, Kelly Barner talks with Gordon Donovan, Vice President Research - Procurement & External Workforce at SAP, about the key findings and recommendations from this updated research into services spend management. 

Gordon shares his perspective on how procurement’s rising confidence levels and scope of responsibilities within the business require teams to challenge the status quo when it comes to services spend management and move beyond cost metrics to more strategic considerations.

Gordon and Kelly discuss:

• The importance of aligning services spend contracts with end-customer needs
• Why it matters what technology procurement is using to manage services spend
• How companies can differentiate their strategic approach based on service types to improve performance metrics
• The critical gaps in services spend management performance measurement

Links:

• Gordon Donovan on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
• Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube
• 2023 Benchmarking Services Procurement: A Global Study