In This Report
Spend Management is the process of identifying, capturing, and controlling expenditures on direct and indirect goods and services that translate dollars saved into profitability improvement. With over $20 trillion in annual worldwide expenditures, this sector is of high strategic importance in an economy that remains somewhat uncertain about identifying new sources of revenue growth as a means for increasing shareholder value. In this Report, the key segments of the industry are assessed along with an analysis of private equity and emerging strategic merger and acquisition activities to date. Several possible long-term strategic paths where Spend Management can play an even more prominent role are also illustrated including:
- Movement Along the Spend Management Value Chainwith major players aligning with best-in-class domain competencies and/or enhancing business models with 'hybrid' solutions consisting of software and IP, application hosting, on-demand Software as a Service (SaaS), professional services, and/or outsourcing;
- The Next Frontier for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software Franchises with Spend Management representing a logical building block and growth engine forback-end ERP, databases, and financial management systems;
- Compelling Justification for Comprehensive Procurement Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) with Spend Management offering the ROI justification neededbefore entering into smaller-scale BPO and building towards comprehensive procurement BPO.
TripleTree research and advisory engagements have allowed us to assemble a vast body of knowledge and expertise about the companies and value drivers that are redefining the Spend Management sector and the creation of interesting "growth platforms" along these strategic paths. The Spend Management field is dynamic and growing. New business models, consolidation, increased attention from the professional investment community - all these and numerous other factors will help shape the field in the months ahead and are addressed in this Report.