Product Update: Savings Insights

Spreadsheets are not savings tracking tools

Over the lifetime of any software contract, there are always opportunities for savings. But business leaders are involved in contract discussions with multiple vendors at any given time, and spreadsheets are typically used for record keeping.

While convenient to use in documenting financial outcomes from these vendor interactions, spreadsheets are not the most efficient tools for tracking savings. Spreadsheet systems have inherent data integrity issues, limited collaboration capabilities, tend to be siloed across departments and, above all, are subject to misinterpretation and human error.

This inefficient means of tracking software contracts is likely a major reason that up to 40% of the average business’ software cost savings go unreported.

Procurement savings has different meanings for different stakeholders

Every leader loves to talk about savings. The challenge, however, is that across organizations and teams, there’s rarely a common language to define savings through the lens of procurement.

For a department leader, it could mean a discount on a new purchase or extra licenses. For a CFO, it might only mean a net cost reduction on contract renewals.

This inconsistency causes confusion and misunderstanding between departments, ultimately leading to a breakdown in communication and collaboration.

Vertice Savings Insights

Savings Insights, our latest enhancement to the Vertice platform, provides visibility into accumulated savings across all your contracts with Vertice.

For leaders needing more comprehensive and accurate data from their savings reports, this feature negates the hassle of manually aggregating savings across multiple different contracts and savings metrics. It provides a clear breakdown of your savings directly in your dashboard view.

Savings metrics included:

• Realized savings: covers all your savings to date with Vertice, both in direct monetary values and in non-monetary values such as free trials, free additional licenses, etc.
• Unrealized savings: covers all the potential savings we’ve identified in your SaaS stack and are currently working to deliver
• Scope reduction savings: covers savings generated by optimizing the scope of your contracts based on your usage insights (e.g., reducing license counts wherever applicable)

How Savings Insights benefit Finance and Procurement teams

Vertice customers can expect annual SaaS spend savings between 20-30%, and this update provides more comprehensive visibility into how we’re helping you actualize those savings.

• Gain a deeper understanding of your savings
  Visualize your entire SaaS stack with percentage breakdowns of your savings across departments or product categories.
• Pinpoint the best savings opportunities
  Identify contracts with the most savings and compare negotiated savings against initially proposed costs from vendors.
• Improve collaboration among stakeholders
  Provide visibility into savings for all account admins to ensure that factors impacting your business’ overall savings are easily accessible for key stakeholders.
• Demonstrate procurement efficiency
  Showcase your results internally through enriched reporting on savings trends and opportunities.
• Inform your procurement strategy
  Forecast future savings and empower leaders to pursue strategic cost reduction initiatives based on current results.
• Track savings implementation and financial impact
  Analyze the effectiveness of your team’s approach to savings over time by monitoring projected and realized savings in relation to any strategies you’ve implemented.