Why faster time-to-value matters in procurement analytics

Procurement teams need actionable insights to make fast, informed decisions. Relying on general-purpose tools like Power BI or building solutions from scratch can lead to missed opportunities due to long development times. This blog delves into the importance of Time to Value (TTV) in procurement analytics and shares key learnings from an industry-leading Sievo customer. 

Want to hear success stories firsthand? Watch our webinar on how rapid deployment and immediate ROI transformed Alliander—hear about their journey directly from their team!

What is Time to Value in Procurement Analytics

Time to Value (TTV) refers to how quickly a business begins to see benefits from an investment in procurement analytics. This period can be short or long, depending on the complexity of the analytics tool and the resources required for implementation. Speed is critical, especially in industries where decisions can make or break success.

Speed in a Competitive Landscape

Procurement teams rely on real-time data to manage supplier performance, mitigate risks, and optimize spending. The sooner the data-driven insights are available, the sooner procurement teams can adjust their strategies for a competitive edge.

With the right analytics solution, procurement leaders can:

• React swiftly to market changes
• Negotiate better pricing
• Avoid supply chain risks

For a global industry leader, a complex IT landscape and the need for rapid transparency made TTV a key factor in selecting a procurement analytics platform:

“We wanted to have transparency as fast as possible... we didn't want to wait for other tools that would take longer to develop." - Procurement Excellence Executive

 

Don’t Delay, Deliver: The Challenges of Building Analytics Solutions

Building an analytics solution from scratch, particularly using tools like Power BI, can be a lengthy process. It often takes over 10 months just to achieve basic functionality, while a full end-to-end solution may take years, depending on the complexity.

Building a solution involves:

• Extensive testing
• Data classification
• Troubleshooting
• Continuous refinement

Every step in the process consumes resources in terms of time and personnel, ultimately prolonging your Time to Value.

You could miss key opportunities while waiting for the solution to be fully developed. The more time you spend building, the longer you remain in the dark about crucial procurement insights.

For this customer, delays were unacceptable due to the urgent demands of their competitive industry. Speed was essential:

"With Sievo, we were able to reduce time-to-value significantly. In just a few months, we were up and running with insights that we could use immediately to drive decision-making." - Procurement Excellence Executive

Why a Best-of-Breed Solution Beats Building In-House

Building in-house may initially seem attractive when comparing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of procurement analytics solutions. As procurement becomes more complex and margins tighter, pre-built solutions offer unmatched efficiency.

"We had limited resources for building our own solution, which is why we eventually selected Sievo. We needed to move fast, and Sievo’s platform enabled us to reach our goals much sooner."

In this article we cover the full cost breakdown of procurement analytics.

Accelerated Time to Value

Adopting a best-of-breed procurement analytics platform like Sievo businesses can dramatically shorten their Time to Value compared to custom-built solutions.

Sievo’s platform was operational for the customer within months, allowing the team to leverage insights immediately. Sievo's procurement-specific capabilities, like materials forecasting, and pre-configured templates, reduced setup time significantly. 

The customer quickly embraced the rapid integration of Sievo:

“In the beginning, IT was skeptical, but once we were live, the questions stopped. The system was delivering value, and everyone saw the benefits.” - Procurement Excellence Executive

Best-of-Breed is Pre-Built and Tested

An advanced solution like Sievo is ready to deploy. This eliminates the lengthy development and testing phases typical of in-house solutions. With over 20 years of procurement best practices, Sievo evolves alongside procurement needs, ensuring you stay ahead of industry trends and allowing your procurement teams to focus on what they do best - procurement strategy execution.

In fact, Sievo's TTV is less than a fifth of the time it would take to build even a basic Power BI setup.

Overcoming Complex Data Challenges

Poor data quality is one of the biggest obstacles to achieving Time to Value. Fragmented IT systems and inconsistent data inputs often lead to inaccurate analytics. The customer faced this exact challenge but quickly resolved it using Sievo’s data management capabilities.

Sievo’s pre-built capabilities allowed this industry leader to efficiently clean, categorize, and organize their procurement data, which would have taken much longer with a custom-built solution.

“We had a data quality issue—garbage in, garbage out—but Sievo helped us achieve 98% data quality quickly. This was a main plus, as it became transparent what we needed to improve.” - Procurement Excellence Executive

How data-driven is your procurement? Take our 15-minute data maturity assesment and discover key areas for growth!

Conclusion: Don’t Delay, Choose the Faster Path to Value

Building a custom procurement analytics solution might seem appealing, but it comes at the cost of time, resources, and delayed insights. Procurement teams seeking immediate value from their analytics solutions must prioritize Time to Value.

As this customer's experience with Sievo demonstrates, best-of-breed solutions offer significant advantages in speed, ease of deployment, and ROI.

Every day spent waiting to launch is a missed opportunity to optimize procurement strategies. It’s time to accelerate your path to procurement success.