Consumers are demanding more from beauty products than ever before. Especially with younger generations, there’s an increased emphasis on the importance of transparency, social responsibility, and sustainability. Added to this are the ongoing and rapidly-increasing challenges of cosmetic industry changes and innovations seen by all suppliers and producers. Beauty companies who understand the need to tame the chaotic nature of data overload are responding through the use of Specification Data ManagementTM (SDM). Specright’s platform adds clarity to beauty industry production processes by giving organizations the ability to dial down to the granular specification level across the entire supply chain while maintaining high-quality standards and improving the overall customer experience.

Recent Forrester research of companies leveraging Specification Data Management illustrates the positive impact of this platform on the beauty industry and many others. Here are four key takeaways from the report.

1. Improved Cost Management Across the Supply Chain

In the newly released report, Forrester found that the total material cost savings through enhanced supplier collaboration totaled more than $1.4 million. This allowed procurement teams to confidently compare bids and work with additional or smaller vendors who could now compete on price since they had accurate specification data. Additionally, the use of specification management allowed companies to realize faster product development and added a collective $839,313 to their profit margins. Development teams had instant access to specifications, allowing them to construct a bill of materials with ease and in a fraction of the time it used to take. The savings in productivity across the supply chain alone freed up more than half the time spent manually tracking specs, resulting in a savings of over $191,000 in labor costs.

2. Improved Response Time to Regulatory Changes

Specright’s Specification Data Management platform supports the storage of compliance-related documents alongside specification data, giving companies a faster way to streamline responses to changes in regulation. Users can receive automatic notifications when documents need to be reviewed, approved, or renewed. One company surveyed by Forrester noted that it went from 29% compliance to around 95% compliance in less than a year by using Specright.

3. Accelerated New Product Development

One beauty industry professional interviewed noted that their company's product development cycle improved by 25% as a direct result of the Specright platform. And similar companies also discovered they could develop and commercialize new products faster than ever through Specright’s capabilities. The fact that a specification management platform provides insights into similar products and materials helped these organizations better locate regulatory-compliant ingredients and supplier packaging.

As a result, they were able to construct their bill of materials faster and simultaneously leverage existing inventory or vendor relationships to get products to market without fear of compliance issues or recalls. Not only were these organizations securing a future of efficiency and accuracy, they were also laying the groundwork to successfully scale their operations over time.

4. A Centralized Knowledge Base for Acquisitions

The composite description of a Specright platform user in Forrester’s report is one whose growth is largely attributed to acquisitions. Over the course of several years and acquisitions, the data from these acquired companies is often largely decentralized. This makes it challenging to effectively manage an efficient supply chain. With Specright, these companies were able to aggregate each acquired company and its data under one single source of truth, enabling greater transparency and efficiency across their portfolio of brands or companies.

The Forrester research is a great introduction to the cost savings and business impact of using specification management software as a solution within Beauty and many other industries. You can download the report summary here - And to learn more about how Specright is reshaping quality standards across the supply chain, download our ebook today.