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Today’s consumers are a unique breed, demanding more specialized products that cater to their tastes and needs as well as greater transparency into the products they buy. Although many companies have been quick to pivot to growing consumer expectations, the result has left a trail of fragmented data and proliferated SKUs that organizations struggle to sort through and leverage to their advantage.In response, many organizations are turning to Specification Data Management™ (SDM™) software to bring clarity to their data across the supply chain. A recent report from Forrester research outlines several key opportunities specification management software provides to improve supply chain economics, including the following:
Streamlined RFPs Create Noticeable Cost Savings
There’s no doubt that supplier collaboration is essential to developing timely, accurate Request for Proposals (RFPs), and Specright’s SDM software is helping to shape and streamline the process. Instead of trying to reverse engineer the potentially hundreds of items that might appear on an RFP, companies using SDM can review accurate specifications in real time. New and smaller vendors also stand to benefit from SDM, as it allows them to be more responsive to RFPs and provide competitive bids that are based on data. In total, Forrester found that material cost savings from improved supplier collaborations totaled an estimated $1.4 million across all surveyed Specright users.
Specification Management Simplifies Order Consolidation for Additional Savings
Cost savings with SDM can be recognized throughout the supply chain, including a combined savings of more than $300,000 due to order consolidation. By viewing materials on a granular level, companies can better identify opportunities to combine items that are nearly identical, helping to eliminate redundancies and increase their order size to reap bulk savings. In addition, SDM allows companies to flag items that can be ordered alongside other items for additional cost savings. According to Forrester, nearly 40 percent of these opportunities would be missed without the help of Specification Data Management.
Improved Speed to Market Increases Sales and Satisfaction
Most notably, Specright works to improve the customer experience by allowing companies to increase their speed to market and responsiveness, both of which are essential in boosting the bottom line. Forrester concluded that access to data at the spec level allowed product teams to create Bills of Materials using existing ingredients, packaging, and materials instead of reinventing the wheel with each new product. This reduced procurement and development times and allowed a faster path to market, resulting in a combined $839,000 in margin. Using Specright, companies can also respond almost immediately to changes in consumer markets and preferences. By tweaking existing packages and products instead of starting from scratch, organizations could stay ahead of competitors and respond more quickly to new business opportunities, such as participating in special promotions or responding to RFPs.
Additional Specright Benefits
Forrester discovered a number of additional quantified and unquantified benefits including streamlining productivity, securing critical data, and gaining visibility and traceability in the supply chain. Download our ebook for more insights on how Specright creates supply chain opportunities for success.
