Spend Analysis: How to Get Full Visibility into Your Procurement
"Where does the money actually go?" That's the question every CFO wants answered — but few organisations can answer it precisely. Procurement is fragmented across ERP, emails, spreadsheets and invoices. Spend analysis solves this by collecting everything in one place and giving you real-time insights.
In this article we explain what spend analysis is, what questions it answers, and how Vieri together with our partner Ignite gives leadership and procurement the tools you need to cut 5–10% of the procurement budget.
Key takeaways
- • Spend analysis answers "where does the money go?" — broken down by suppliers, categories and projects
- • Most organisations do not know their own distribution until someone looks — that is the first finding
- • Vieri provides the data foundation — Ignite delivers the advanced analysis
- • Real-time dashboards replace monthly Excel reports
What is spend analysis — and why is it critical?
Spend analysis is the process of collecting, categorising and analysing your organisation's procurement data to understand where the money actually goes. It sounds simple, but most organisations struggle with three fundamental problems:
- Fragmented data: Procurement data sits scattered across ERP, invoice systems, emails and spreadsheets
- Missing categorisation: Procurement is not consistently categorised, so you can't compare across suppliers or cost centres
- Manual reporting: The procurement team spends days creating Excel reports that are outdated by the time they're delivered
The result is that most organisations make procurement decisions based on gut feeling and last year's numbers — not real-time data.
Questions a good spend analysis answers
With spend analysis you can answer in seconds questions that previously required weeks of Excel work:
For CFO
- How much do we spend on procurement in total — broken down by category?
- What share goes to our top-10 suppliers?
- Have procurement costs grown faster than revenue?
- Which departments are exceeding budget — and in which categories?
For procurement manager
- Which suppliers give us the best contract terms?
- What share of procurement is on framework agreements (contract compliance)?
- Which categories can be consolidated to fewer suppliers?
- Which contracts should be renegotiated — based on actual volume?
For leadership and board
- How much goes to local vs. foreign suppliers?
- What's the CO2 footprint of our procurement?
- How much has spend control saved us in the last 12 months?
- What risks lie in our supplier base?
💡 Did you know?
A typical organisation with €50M procurement budget can find €2.5–5M in savings in the first year of doing thorough spend analysis. This happens by consolidating suppliers, eliminating duplicate purchases, and renegotiating contracts that don't reflect actual volume.
How Vieri and Ignite make it easy
Spend analysis is only as good as the data foundation. If 30% of procurement happens off-system (classic maverick buying), you're missing data on a large share of spending. So spend analysis must be built on a robust procurement system — and that's where Vieri comes in.
Vieri provides the data foundation
Vieri collects all procurement in one place: ordering, approval, supplier agreements, goods receipt and invoices. Each transaction is categorised and linked to project and cost centre. When 90% of procurement flows through the system, you have the data foundation for meaningful analysis.
Ignite delivers the analytics platform
Ignite is the Nordics' leading platform for spend and supplier analysis. We've integrated Vieri directly with Ignite — meaning procurement data flows automatically into Ignite's advanced dashboards, ESG analysis and benchmarking tools.
You get:
- Interactive dashboards for leadership and procurement teams
- ESG and sustainability data per supplier (ready for CSRD reporting)
- Benchmarking against industry averages
- Consolidated spend reporting at group level
5 concrete savings spend analysis uncovers
1. Maverick buying costs more than you think
When 30–40% of procurement happens off-contract, you typically pay 2–5% higher prices than necessary. Spend analysis shows exactly where it happens — so you can fix it.
2. Consolidation of small suppliers
Most organisations have 5–10 suppliers within the same category, many with small volumes. Consolidation to 1–2 main suppliers puts more volume behind each supplier, which is a stronger position at renegotiation — and less administration.
3. Renegotiation based on actual volume
Many contracts were negotiated based on estimates. Spend analysis gives you the actual numbers — which you can use to renegotiate better terms.
4. Identifying tail spend
"Tail spend" is all the small spending that doesn't get attention from the procurement team — typically 20% of consumption, 80% of suppliers. Consolidation here gives quick wins.
5. Eliminating duplicate purchases
When departments work in isolation, they often end up buying the same thing — from different suppliers, at different prices. Spend analysis uncovers this pattern.
Practical example
A customer of ours discovered through Ignite that they had 17 different office supply vendors across 12 locations. Consolidation to 2 suppliers gave 18% discount — plus elimination of 200 hours annually on invoice processing.
How to get started with spend analysis
The simplest is to start with the data you already have:
- Centralise procurement. Get as much procurement as possible flowing through Vieri (or similar system). This typically takes 3–6 months.
- Establish the category tree. Define how procurement should be categorised. UNSPSC or your own taxonomy — what matters is consistency.
- Connect to Ignite. Our integration between Vieri and Ignite is built. Procurement data flows automatically into the analysis.
- Define KPIs. What do you want to measure? Contract compliance? Supplier concentration? CO2 footprint? Choose 3–5 KPIs to start with.
- Iterate. Use insights to negotiate better, consolidate suppliers and detect anomalies. Measure impact quarterly.
Get started today
Spend analysis is no longer reserved for global groups with their own analytics teams. With Vieri and Ignite you get best-in-class tools without building it all yourself. Data flows automatically, dashboards are ready, and insights arrive in seconds.
The question isn't whether you can afford to introduce spend analysis — it's whether you can afford not to.
Sources
Ready for full control of procurement spend?
Book a demo and see how Vieri and Ignite give you the data foundation and analysis — in one cohesive solution. We'll show you concretely how your procurement data turns into savings.
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