Dropping commodity prices have buyers salivating at the prospect of saving some money, especially in the face of top line stagnation. But where do you start? What categories are ripe for the picking vs others that are either a lower priority or best left alone?

Ultimately the goal is build a prioritized sourcing pipeline that meets the functional requirements of the company and delivers savings to the bottom line. But getting there requires a comprehensive category assessment along with a continuous knowledge transfer, which is a daunting task.

My colleague Rucel Mangrobang and I will be conducting a webinar next week (register here) that walks through best practices for building a sourcing pipeline and a significant portion of the time will be devoted the category assessment process and the importance of building a holistic knowledge framework to help boost pipeline and drive opportunities.

So what steps do we recommend for assessing your categories to find opportunity?

1. Data Collection - You need to identify stakeholders and decision makers throughout the organization and agree on a process (questionnaire, meetings, etc). compiling that data is no small task, but without it your decisions are based on guesswork. So it’s essential that this step be thorough, complete and…timely enough to be relevant.
2. Analysis & Interviews - All that data will certainly lead to some questions. Define a process and timeline for meeting with the stakeholders, as their input here is critical to digging deeper into categories that appear to hold some promise.
3. Opportunity Assessment Workshop - Here’s where the rubber starts to meet the road and your present potential opportunities, strategies, savings and pitfalls to the spend owners. It’s always possible that this step could actually send you back to the drawing board and shifting market conditions or more questions come up. But the key is communication, so make sure you’ve addressed all concerns before skipping ahead to the next step.
4. Post-Workshop Analysis - Present your recommendations for savings opportunities and sourcing strategies. Since everyone will be looking for guidance as to priorities, be prepared to identify quick wins as well as sustainable programs.

As I said, we’ll be diving into greater detail next week in the webinar, so I invite you to join us. And in the mean time, if you have any specific questions you are welcome to email me or leave them in the Comment section.

Sundar Kamakshisundaram is the Marketing Manager for Ariba’s Sourcing Solutions. For questions, comments or feedback, Sundar can be reached at sundar[at]ariba.com.