Interview

with Charlie Clark, CEO of Rosslyn Analytics Fires start with small flames. June 2012

In the world of supply management solutions, we are so familiar with the options on the market that we often forget about the visionaries behind each brand. Buyers Meeting Point recently interviewed Charlie Clark, CEO of Rosslyn Analytics. It is clear from his response to todays challenges and the market as a whole that he believes in the work his team is doing, as well as the underlying innovation of the RAPid platform, Rosslyns core solution. Charlie was a co-founder of Rosslyn Analytics. His leadership abilities stem from his experience with rapidly growing private corporations as well as his time in the British military during Desert Storm. He has been recognized numerous times for his thought leadership and contributions to industry as well as being a client award recipient. Buyers Meeting Point: Rosslyn Analytics was founded in 2007 with a focus in procurement and has since expanded their solutions applicability to enable other functions like finance, IT and internal audit. What have you observed about the ways these other departments approach a spend analysis solution and the data itself that procurement can learn from? Charlie Clark: Historically spend analysis has been perceived as an ugly duckling by many. Its a tough data problem to crack. There are so many moving parts as well as the added complication of combining structured and unstructured data elements in one view and each client differs. To add another layer of complexity, spend data needs classification or, as we say, to be categorised properly and accurately, for it to be useful. Over all, this is probably why spend analysis is rarely successful when integrated into the overarching business intelligence (BI) strategy that IT builds and deploys. To deliver valuable spend analytics there are critical activities that are data specific, requiring deep domain expertise that are not mainstream but niche. Buying spend analytics is often seen as a tactical purchase initiated by procurement, requiring some buyin from finance and supply chain and, to some degree, IT. We are in the midst of an almost perfect storm: a combination of new technologies, lower pricing points, vastly improved delivery systems via the cloud, and an economic environment that is at best challenging - and at worst crippling. All organizations have to accelerate innovation across departments such as procurement, supply chain and operations. It is not just the fact that the macro and the micro have come together - this fire is stoked by the fact that it is virtually impossible to attain differentiation from ones competitors based on a product or service alone. Analytics is a critical activity in all serious challenger and competitive companies, and pushing this capability down and across to all decision-makers or knowledge workers in easy-to-use and highly consumable ways is a key enabler. This is increasingly becoming the difference between success and failure for businesses. A new generation of spend analytics companies is emerging and they bring with them a completely new and powerful style of analytics which not just enable but elevate procurements position in the overall BI space. Some of these advances are right at the cutting edge, and transform not just the potential value of data, but how spend data can be brought to bear by the entire enterprise and its value fully appreciated by everyone. The ability to extract and transform enterprise data automatically and then fuse it with all the relevant external sources of information is new and transformational in every respect. Procurement is a clear leader in this thats a first.

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BMP: Id like to talk about two of Rosslyn Analytics 2012 predictions for procurement and supply chain executives, released in November 2011 and based on your conversations with customers, partners and industry experts. In your first prediction, you talk about procurements star rising within the organization while at the same time battling assertive moves by finance to take greater control of what they see as a high value function. In your second prediction, you describe how existing spend analysis platforms will be leveraged by other parts of the business to accomplish more without additional investment. How can procurement proactively use their ownership of spend analysis solutions to forge relationships within the organization, both to support their value and to maintain independence from finance? CC: Procurement is a rising star in organizations because of the recognized value they deliver. This newfound recognition has been brought on by an economy where bottom line savings is highly sought after because growing the top line is harder today than it was yesterday. As a result, procurement has shown the universal value of spend data and analysis to many stakeholders within the enterprise. Not surprisingly, we see the relationship between stakeholders improving as procurement brings spend data to bear in a fresh and innovative way through highly collaborative technologies. This open-minded, unifying approach empowers procurement to share insights with a variety of internal networks of knowledge workers. As for independence from procurement, Rosslyn Analytics works with many elite teams that are leaders because they arent siloed or independent, but have become integrated with key decision-making groups. Remaining independent - and not fully integrated with the enterprise - is a missed opportunity for procurement and the entire business. Mutual interdependence improves the strength of the team and the reach of their combined results. BMP: In Q4 of 2011, Rosslyn Analytics announced the release of the Trucost sustainable procurement app, the worlds first self-service sustainability app which enables procurement, supply chain and corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments to calculate and manage the carbon and water footprint of every supplier in their supply chain across the world in seconds. Are you able to share some of the surprises and successes that have resulted from companies who implemented the Trucost app? CC: The Trucost app is a good example of procurement taking the lead and adopting a fresh and powerful technology-driven approach to solving a complex problem. To this end, it has drawn elite procurement teams into the highly charged conversation around corporate sustainability and given them a valuable and influential voice. Rosslyns clients are able to monitor and measure carbon emissions and water usage across their supply chain, both of which are often ignored! This information is in turn influencing corporate supply chain strategy. Boards take corporate social responsibility seriously and it is a sound business practice, too. However, this is only possible if the information is made available to decision-makers. What we are seeing is the socialization of data throughout the enterprise as it is being tracked, analyzed and measured from a single analytics platform. BMP: In your recent blog post about supporting innovation through the combination of data and external information, you talk about the questions enriched enterprise data can answer. Many of the questions of most interest to companies relate to their ability to manage and mitigate risk: responding to supply chain disruptions, natural disasters, and geopolitical unrest. Do you find that most of the demand in this area comes from spend management groups who want to learn more to expand their abilities or to respond to greater demands from other departments in the organization.

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CC: Fires start with small flames. I think it is fair to say that if you observe the adoption of enriched enterprise data in a single company, it starts with a department-level team and then spreads very quickly because of the rich, contextually relevant information. In turn, I think we can overlay this phenomenon across the industry in that we have seen leaders adopt progressive information management and it is clearly percolating horizontally and vertically. I am thrilled to see that the financial services sector is beginning to appreciate the value of enriched data to better visualize and price risk. This confirms that when we started Rosslyn Analytics with a vision of building and delivering a Bloomberg / Reuters screen to knowledge workers across an enterprise we may have been a little early but it is very much becoming a reality today. The majority of our clients either manage or influence similar amounts of spend - and in MANY cases considerably more - than any trader or fund manager in the capital markets and they have been doing it with considerably less information. The way I look at this is that Rosslyn Analytics is the hub and over time we will be adding as many spokes as we can. For our clients today, this means we join them on a unique journey to progressively enrich their data with actionable information. BMP: There have been a number of changes in the landscape of spend management solution providers over the last six months most notably the acquisition of Emptoris by IBM and Ariba by SAP. How does this affect your vision for Rosslyn Analytics role in the market and what impact do you believe it has on the practitioners looking to compare available solutions to find the best fit for their organization? CC: First of all, consolidation is a good thing because it embodies the Darwinian principle of natural selection: only the fittest and smartest will survive. These recent acquisitions will spur on new innovation, and so the cycle of improvement starts again. At this particular time in history, two of the big players in our space have been swallowed up, which will reduce their agility and freedom to innovate. They will be at the mercy of the synergy hunters. As a practitioner, I would encourage customers to widen and deepen their enquiries of prospective solution providers. This clean air will be a period of innovation and with that comes an opportunity for independent new companies to disrupt the landscape and change the rules again. BMP: This is a question we ask all of our interviewees: Is there a professional or supply management book that you have read and would recommend to others? CC: I suggest Smart Customers, Stupid Companies by Michael Hinshaw & Bruce Kasanoff. If after reading this book you are not provoked and sitting-up, I recommend you check your pulse!

About Buyers Meeting Point Buyers Meeting Point is an online knowledge and professional development resource for procurement and supply management professionals. Our mission is to support overburdened professionals by making information accessible by centralizing access to resources on our site, by digesting content and evaluating sources looking for the highest quality information, and by making sure all our coverage is done clearly and simply with no presupposition of pre-existing knowledge or experience. There is a world of information available to you and our site and resources provide an avenue for you to gain market knowledge and expertise from others and to apply them where appropriate for your business. Watch our news articles and blog postings for information on webinars, solutions, research reports, publications and whitepapers being discussed by your colleagues. Make sure you get a well-rounded perspective on procurement by reading our Flip Side content featuring "The Sales Guy". We are convinced you will find something among our resources to assist you with your current challenges. For more information, please visit www.buyersmeetingpoint.com or email management@buyersmeetingpoint.com Join Us, Learn With Us, Grow With Us

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