why don’t we talk anymore?

Developing a Language for Procurement Data

Why Don’t We Talk Anymore?

1Annual MeetingApril 7 - 10, 2013Orlando, Florida

Speakers

• Greg Macway – Strategic CoordinatorUniversity of California, San FranciscoUniversity of California, Berkeleygreg.macway@UCSF.edu

• Erin Riley – Analytics & Reporting ManagerUniversity of California, Office of the President

erin.riley@UOCP.edu

Annual MeetingApril 7 - 10, 2013Orlando, Florida

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The Language of Procurement

Word Cloud - Indiana University Procurement Bloghttp://iuprocurement.wordpress.com/

Do we have the SAME Procurement language?

Word Cloud – NAEP 2013 Program

4

The Story of UCForeword What is University of California Procurement?Prologue: Why we don’t talk, and what it was costing usChapter 1 How we started the conversationChapter 2 How we embraced the languageChapter 3 Stories of successEpilogue The next adventure

About the University of CaliforniaWe are BIG•500 Miles from Northernmost to Southernmost Campus•10 Campuses & Office of the President•234,000 Students•210,000 Employees & Faculty •$23 Billion Annual Operating Budget•101st largest economy in the world. (between Tanzania and El Salvador)

#15 in Olympic medal count (sorry Canada)#7 in Gold medal count (sorry China)

UC Procurement Statistics

• $5.6B in Annual Spend• 155k Vendors– 500k Vendor Records

• 1.1M Purchase Orders• 2.8M Invoices• 5.8M Transaction Lines

(excluding P-card)

UC Procurement Organization(s)• De-centralized Model

– No System-wide Purchasing, Accounts Payable or Information Technology

• 11 Procurement Departments– Varying levels of Procure-to-Pay

ownership and influence • 9 ERP Systems

– Peoplesoft, Banner, Walker, Homegrown/Legacy

• 8 Ecommerce Instances – 6 SciQuest,

CommerceOne/PerfectCommerce, Homegrown

• Fund Based Accounting– Lots of Buckets of Money– Lots of Varying Needs

Organic Growth in a Silo

So, why don’t we talk?

What we Buyvs

What we Get

The consequences of silence

• In one month, UC Office of the President made 29 requests for procurement data.– 10 campuses– 1 analyst @ 2.5hrs per request per campus– 725 hours of data collection hours

• System wide contract pricing neglected• 5 year strategic plans became stale• A lack of collaboration and trust between schools

Annual MeetingApril 7 - 10, 2013Orlando, Florida

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A Change in the Wind

• 9/2011 System Wide Vision for Spend Analytics– Answer simple questions, quickly– Be flexible in accepting data– Allow for continuous development– Reduce the effort required to analyze spend– Create standards in procurement data

• Launched an RFP 11/2011• Awarded to Spend Radar 01/2012• World Ends 12/2012…. Got to get to work

Annual MeetingApril 7 - 10, 2013Orlando, Florida

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Adobe Acrobat Document

Vision Document

Flexibility: A blessing and a curse…

We needed common definitions

• We knew we had a Data problem…• …but it was secondary to a Communication problem

How do we overcome

•complexity of systems •diversity of knowledge•varying needs

between campuses and develop a best in class

solution?

Multi-Campus Fight to the Death!

2-day Definition Workshop

• Cross functional group, 20 people– Accounting– Purchasing– Information Technology

• Discussed differences across campuses• Spent as much time in the clouds as we did in the

weeds• Broke down barriers of– “It depends” – “That’s just how it’s always been done”

2-day Definition Workshop

Day 1: Communication

Day 1: Communication via Reports

Day 1: Communication via Reports

Day 2: Data & Systems

Workshop Outcome (Guiding Principles) • Since Procurement didn’t have definitions, use a

group that did, Accounts Payable– GASB terms and principles where applicable

• Spend originates at the General Ledger. All other activities/documents are supportive/secondary

• Use existing objects/definitions rather than creating new ones. (avoid cross object definitions and language)

Terms Definitions

Scope Definitions

• Keep the data request to campuses “simple, but inclusive”.– asked for all data related to objects, not specific fields

(give us all data in tables related to POs)

• Only include data from objects from campus financial systems (Invoices, POs, Vendor, Org). Not secondary systems.

• Keep data inclusive and intact. Don’t engineer around errors/flaws.

• Accept we’re not going to be perfect.

Definitions guided our Implementation

• The data request to IT groups was very clear– Immediately showed gaps in campus data– Acted as an anchor for follow up conversations

• Normalized Employee Reimbursements– Employee names were masked

• US Bank integration (future opportunity)– Could not tie transactions back to the GL– Decided to include data, but report separately

User Interface Design

Answering Simple Questions

1. Who is our Audience? 2. Who is buying?3. What is being bought?4. Who are we buying from?5. How are we buying?6. Bonus: How is my data filtered

What are we buying?

Who are we buying from?

How are we buying?Who is buying?

No Roles, No Hidden Data

• Started with Roles based approach– Executives developing system wide strategies– Buyers looking for historical buy info– Strategic Analysts looking for sourcing opportunities

• Because of the flexibility of the tool, our solutions met the needs of all three groups.– Differentiated specific value via training

What am I looking at? Filters

• Search Box (A) – input data elements to find in solution

• Overview Information (B) – quick information view such as filtered spend, number of Vendors, POs, Invoice, Lines, Date Range

• Data Source (C) – select between campus financial system data or US Bank Pcard data

• Campus Filter (D) – select all, multiple, or single campus data view

• Date Select (E) – data can be filtered by date range criteria such as quarter, month, year

• Current Selections (F) – displays the current selections user has selected

A

B

C

D

E

F

Other Functionality

Tab Overview

Dashboard View systemwide spend data and filter by campus, time period, etc. There is a single Dashboard for all users.

Category Analysis

Analyze spend by category based on a variety of dimensions.

Price Analysis Identify items or like items and view prices paid across the system

Opportunity Assessment

Analyze potential savings and sourcing opportunities based on spend data. Assessment opportunities are updated as spend data is added.

Custom Report Create reports using any dimension or metric available in the solution.

Selections Filter data based on all available fields and associated values.

Advanced Filter View Supplier, Invoice and PO data sorted into pre-established thresholds.

Challenges / Hurdles

Where are my resources?

Challenges / Hurdles

Innovation = Lack of Experience

Challenges / Hurdles

No change management fairy godmother

Challenges / Hurdles

Working with (and around) IT Groups

Success Stories

• Everybody wants it!• Strategic Planning• Category Management• Outside-the-box Solutions

Success Pic Goes Here

The Future Looks Good• More Shared Definitions• Expansion of Audience • Additional Data Sources• Additional Analysis– Contract Analysis– Sustainability/Small Business

Reporting– Operational Metrics– P-Card Program– Vendor Performance Analysis

Closing & Questions

Thank You!

Greg Macway greg.macway@UCSF.edu

Erin Rileyerin.riley@UOCP.edu