4 Ways Internal Procurement Can Save Time and Money with an Outside Buyer

It may not seem to make sense to bring on Vendr if your company has procurement internally. At the surface, this seems redundant to the job a procurement team is already doing. However, from what we’ve seen, there are some strong benefits to partnering with an outsourced software buyer that will make procurement’s life a lot easier and the team more effective.

Reason 1: Allow procurement to focus on major spend.

It’s no secret that when a team is spread too thin, the most critical tasks at hand suffer. For example, within the procurement organization, if AWS is approaching renewal, all hands need to be on deck. These types of purchases/renewals require detailed internal processes, many stakeholders, and offer a big opportunity for savings. Managing this process from the inside of the company is much more effective.

But meanwhile, dozens of SaaS products may be auto-renewing behind the scenes as negotiations are ongoing with Amazon. There simply isn't enough time in the day to focus on a handful of $30k-$300k products when AWS is quoting the company at $5m++.

And this makes sense. Internal procurement should be focused on spend over $1m. These types of investments are extremely customized the organization's use case, involve specific expertise, and require a strong internal network.

Alternatively, most often, software spend under $1m isn’t worth procurement's time. These purchases/renewals can be very time consuming, may require multiple calls, and will only yield a fraction of the savings. Across a dozen of these vendors though, the opportunities for savings adds up. This is where Vendr can help.

We work with these smaller vendors daily which has allowed us to become very familiar with these companies' processes, and therefore helped us uncover efficiency and negotiation leverage opportunities. In return, our customers can save money, and procurement can better spend their time where it matters. 

Reason 2: Refine internal buying strategy.

The most successful companies we’ve worked with have a very detailed procurement process that is constantly being refined and tweaked. These processes allow purchasing to scale in an efficient manner. They typically involve details that go up to the decision point of the purchase, such as evaluation process, approval processes, KPIs, SLAs, and so on.

Procurement’s time is best suited continuing to refine these processes and strategy -- not going back and forth with reps on numbers or coordinating contract details with legal and security. Vendr takes these more tedious tasks off of procurement's plate. We act as the central point of contact for vendor sales reps, legal, and security to improve efficiency and save time.

Reason 3: It’s too easy to miss a small detail.

Software is constantly evolving, whether through price changes, new players in the market, or technological shifts. Procurement shouldn’t need to (or want to) worry about becoming experts in the sales process for over 1000 different vendors.

For procurement teams that parter with Vendr, they don't have to. We've found a ~70% overlap across our customers' SaaS stack and therefore are very familiar with the SaaS landscape. We can offer opinions and guidance on what we've seen similar companies doing so procurement doesn't need to sweat the details. 

Reason 4: Make your negotiations more successful.

Love to negotiate with SaaS vendors? Great! We’re not here to try and take that way away from you.

In fact, we’ve found that if procurement takes the lead on a SaaS purchase or renewal and leverages their personal expertise while partnered with information we’ve gathered from previous purchases and renewals, the outcomes are far better.

For example, maybe you’re at a standstill in a negotiation. Whether we’ve worked with that specific vendor or not, we can brainstorm together to find ideas based on what we’ve seen work, acting as your co-pilot.

We realize you may still have some questions or are unsure of how this would look for your own team. I’m happy to chat it through. Shoot me a note at calto@vendr.com.