Category Excellence Management

True Category Strategy Excellence Can Help Enhance Innovativeness And Flexibility On Cost Saving and Value Creation

Using the latest in advanced scenario planning, leading-edge analytical tools, and comprehensive supply management approaches, leading organizations deliver double the financial benefits across spend categories and inform the business strategies of their company.

Most companies today use basic sourcing techniques to keep their external spend in check—in many cases issuing RFQs or conducting reverse auctions for major direct and indirect spend categories. Bolder organizations assemble cross-functional teams to creatively impact supply and demand power across their external spend, for example, by changing the nature of demand, seeking joint advantage with suppliers, or playing them off against one another. Few go another step further to develop deep analytic capabilities that give them genuine expertise in specific domains.

Hay Think’s approach ensures companies achieve lasting advantage in their supply chain in several key ways, including (but not limited to):

Defining category cost structures through advanced cost modeling, tear-down analysis, parametric bidding

Identifying the underlying cost drivers at the macro level (such as supply-demand balances) and micro level (including specification proliferation)

Unlocking the full-potential value road map through the deployment of collaborative optimization tools and engaging in comprehensive scenario planning

Using advanced analytics to develop long-term strategic playbooks for select categories

Rigorous execution through a stage-gate sourcing process with involvement of key functional and business stakeholders, coupled with a razor-sharp focus on implementation, will ensure benefits are captured quickly and minimize erosion of benefits post-sourcing.

Category Strategy Excellence Is A Powerful Tool That Should Be At The Core Of The Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Management.

Spend Analysis and Advanced Category Analytics

Most leaders understand that applying analytics to business strategies is key to maintaining a competitive edge. Advanced analytic methods can be the differentiating factor for an organization by providing accurate visibility into how to optimize key processes. 

By analyzing spend data, we can identify areas of improvement and support your commitment to deliver services smarter, faster and at reduced cost. Our spend analysis process offers customized business analysis using tools and highly skilled technical consultants, not standardized, off-the-shelf solutions. It is the first critical component of procurement transformation, as it enables you to implement changes that give you the best value in procuring goods and services. 

Why Choose Category Management Services From Hay Think?

A wealth of in-house category experts

Vast network of subject matter experts

Over one million suppliers in our proprietary database

Access to several third-party research resources

Spend, savings and best-practice benchmarks from thousands of sourcing projects

Rich repository of analytical tools and templates

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As procurement continues to evolve from a tactical to a strategic enterprise function, CPOs and other senior procurement leaders are being evaluated on their team`s strategic contributions to the success of the business.

Cost control and take-out remain as prime objectives, but procurement`s mission is increasingly seen as impacting both the top and bottom lines, with a direct connection to enterprise growth and competitiveness. How can you start meeting these intensified expectations — delivering impressive savings, yes, but also creating value that indicates progress toward organizational maturity?

Hay Think`s category management services not only help procurement teams in market-leading enterprises worldwide save more money, but also contribute value in ways that include improving supplier performance, mitigating supply risks, and driving innovation and continuous improvement.

Hay Think`s Category Management Outsourcing Services: 

Procurement leaders at enterprises worldwide have relied on Hay Think`s category management outsourcing services to deliver higher savings, improve supplier performance, mitigate risks, and drive innovation at their enterprises.

Supply Market Intelligence  

Access to accurate information at the right moments is crucial in sourcing, and can give your business a significant competitive advantage. Not having it, on the other hand, is a good way to jeopardize the stability of your whole operation.

Hay Think`s sourcing specialists use custom-configured engagement models to provide market intelligence and key insights that help your team make critical decisions with conviction. 

Category Planning   

A clear, solid process for planning and budgeting forms the base for opportunity assessment and risk management, which is especially vital for commodities like raw materials that are subject to unpredictable market factors.

Hay Think`s category management consultants and market intelligence teams support our clients’ budgeting processes by constantly tracking key markets, analyzing market trends and potential price variabilities. This enables stable, reliable planning for spending in every critical category, whether direct or indirect.

Contracting and Contract Management   

Getting a contract finalized is a long and laborious task — and the longer it drags on, the longer it takes your enterprise to actually realize the value secured by the negotiations. With each passing day, you lose out on more benefits and savings.

That`s where our contract specialists come in — they are experts at liaising with procurement and legal teams and working with vendors to speed up the process and get you the most favorable contractual terms. They can support the seamless execution of supply agreements, master agreements, statements of work and NDAs. Not only does this cut down the time needed to finalize a contract, it also serves to limit risk while allowing category managers to dedicate their resources on addressing greater spend.

It includes everything from maintaining complete repositories, managing compliance, and keeping track of renewals, rebates and reporting. 

SMART by Hay Think`s contract management tools, purpose-built for procurement teams, simplify and automate the contracting and contract administration process.

Supplier Performance Management  

Spend Management  

Smart spend Management actually offers enterprises one of the largest incremental savings opportunities available. 

The Hay Think approach to spend management is based on battle-tested methodologies developed within real-world scenarios. Our world-class sourcing and transaction management capabilities put proven cost reduction practices into play to deliver sustainable results.

Savings and Compliance Tracking   

You can`t fix what you can`t control. And what cannot be measured cannot be controlled. And measurement is made incredibly difficult by myriad categories, subcategories, assumptions, and savings formulas — further complicated by limited influence over end users and limited view into contract compliance. You can easily see your savings evaporate by the point when goods and services are finally being purchased.

With savings and compliance tracking services from Hay Think, you`ll have access to an all-inclusive, fully modifiable procurement dashboard that gives you complete visibility into actual savings realized against the savings plans in place. It will also point to the reasons for noncompliance at a particular business unit, category, supplier or process level, not only enabling you to identify culprits and drivers of noncompliance, but to take remedial measures. 

Continuous Improvement and Innovation 

A big factor distinguishing Hay Think`s category management services from those of our competitors is our timeless, tireless commitment to continuous improvement and innovation.

At Hay Think, profound category experience, strategic sourcing best practices and process expertise meet advanced category management tools to implement sophisticated, category-specific cost-saving programs that significantly lower expenses and create immense value for our clients. Some of these include demand management, product/service rationalization, value engineering, transaction cost reduction, and low-cost country sourcing.

The Power of Proactive 

Dependable suppliers, good contractual terms 

Changing business needs, compliance gaps and below-par supplier performance can all erode identified savings.

Proactive management is integral to ensure that suppliers and contracts deliver real savings and value. That`s the Hay Think approach to category management consulting. It gets you:

Real-time market intelligence on suppliers and commodities

Best-practice category and industry methodologies

Precise category planning, encompassing forecasting and budgeting

Supplier performance tracking

Improved compliance

Proactive contract reviews and renewals

Decreased off-contract (maverick) purchasing and greater spend under management

Live savings measurement and tracking – identified vs. realized

Constant annual cost reductions

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