Merger & Acquisition Insights

Guest Columnist: In the Hot Seat with Cost Management Expert – Todd Koca

Posted on November 15, 2018 by Spencer Tenney

 Todd Koca

What are the biggest hurdles for achieving cost savings?

Where does one begin, given the numerous transportation industry challenges a company faces today – driver shortage; regulatory reform around hours of service; driver retention; ELD mandates; etc.  It’s easy to see why transportation companies place their investment of money, time and resources into maximizing their operational effectiveness in these areas of core competence.  Unfortunately, something always takes a back seat to these pressing issues.

A common area that takes a back seat is expense management.  Effective total cost management is typically not a core, functional competency of a transportation company; hence, most companies don’t plan or budget to invest in resources and technology to manage costs more effectively and efficiently.

What are the biggest challenges for saving money for small to mid-size transportation companies?  For large companies?

Unfortunately, small to mid-size companies most typically lack the time, resources, procurement expertise, effective sourcing processes, and most importantly, the buying power needed to maximize savings on the supplies, parts, and services they buy every day.  On the other hand, large companies – while having buying power to negotiate lower prices – often struggle to manage and control their spend because of the inefficiencies created by operating multiple locations, utilizing multiple purchasers, and not employing a single procurement process.  All these factors lead to a lack of transparency, fluctuating pricing, and inconsistent purchasing behaviors.

Expense management is more than just line-item savings.  When it comes to determining the cost of your accounts payable processing, don’t forget to factor in the time your staff spends processing invoices — time they could be working on other things that bring more value to your business.  Streamlining, standardizing and automating many of your company’s financial functions, from accounts payable to payments, saves you money and time and allows your staff to focus more on core business functions.

What best practices are industry leaders employing for spend management controls?

Companies are beginning to shift away from the traditional procurement methods of phone, fax and paper catalogs.  Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce is becoming serious business for a growing number of purchasing managers across diverse industries, as they are shifting more of their buying online.

Moving into 2019, it will be imperative that companies begin to invest in procurement technology so that their buyers are more effective at purchasing and saving money.  Companies are improving transaction processing by implementing a procure-to-pay (P2P) solution that gives a holistic approach to streamlining operations.  To get the full benefit of process standardization, you need to digitize and automate your processes.  Your best option is a cloud-based, P2P solution that provides real-time visibility into all transaction data as well as reports on the status of invoice and payments.

Below are primary reasons a transportation company should adopt a procure-to-pay (P2P) platform:

• “Guided buying” – help buyers use the correct supplies, contracts, catalogs, and approvals for spending.
• Increase savings by improving compliance to product standardization.
• Improve procurement productivity by gaining visibility to detailed spend insight.
• Improve organization agility by shortening order cycle times.
• Create and manage powerful approval workflows and transmit purchase orders.
• Simplify and streamline the ordering, receiving, order confirmation with your suppliers.
• Process invoices more quickly, to support a supply chain finance program.
• Streamline and accelerate the invoicing and settlement processes while reducing the time and resources spent reconciling exceptions.
• Save money by implementing a purchase order approval process with spending thresholds.
• Budget Management
• Eliminate paper!

An electronic P2P system will centralize procurement functionality and deliver unique management controls and savings by streamlining the requisition, approval, purchase order creation and transmission, invoicing and settlement processes, while maintaining decentralized purchasing behaviors.

Comfort is the enemy of progress.  While stepping out of one’s comfort zone may not be easy, it can be very painless to implement if utilizing the right technology and collaborating with the right subject matter experts.

About CROWNSOURCE

CROWNSOURCE is a total spend management solution for the transportation industry.  Through our buying power, procurement expertise and easy-to-use technology, we are transforming the procurement of supplies, parts, fuel and services for our customers.

Our next-generation eProcurement Platform – CrownConnect – combines an easy-to-use, one-stop eCommerce Marketplace shopping experience with a web-enabled, centralized Procure-to-Pay (P2P) System which delivers savings on nearly three million supplies, parts and services needed to manage your day-to-day operations. CrownConnect delivers unique management controls which streamline and accelerate the purchase order requisition, approval, creation and transmission, as well as the invoicing, three-way matching, and settlement processes – reducing time and resources spent reconciling exceptions and to focus on activities that more directly impact your business.

CROWNSOURCE improves your operational efficiency and maximizes your profitability by CONNECTING YOU TO MORE…

For more information, visit http://www.crownsourceinc.com

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