Latest news with #spendmanagement
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Digital Revolution: How Tech Is Transforming Spend Management
Todd Abner is founder, president and CEO of OMNIA Partners, a leading group purchasing org. in the U.S. serving public and private sectors. While once viewed as a back-office function, procurement has risen to become a top priority in the C-suite, due in part to economic volatility, supply chain disruptions and inflationary pressures. According to ProcureCon's Annual CPO Report, 60% of respondents say their Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) will be one of multiple leaders spearheading technology initiatives over the next twelve months. This underlines the importance of today's CPOs becoming well-versed in leveraging technologies like AI, machine learning and predictive analytics to gain competitive advantages in the market. In my experience, this is especially true when it comes to improved spend visibility. The Challenges Of Spend Management Historically, a traditional approach to spend management has left many procurement teams struggling to monitor and manage their organization's spend. Here are some of the most common issues: Without a central hub to store information, data can become siloed, leaving visibility gaps for procurement teams responsible for managing the entirety of their organization's spend. As a result, they are left unable to understand total spend, category-specific spend and more. For example, a university may be experiencing maverick spending, also known as rogue spending, because individual departments are making purchases independently. Conducting and reviewing spend management manually can be time-consuming for procurement teams who are already under pressure to do more with less while navigating a talent shortage. Many procurement teams face an uphill battle when it comes to the staggering amounts of data they need to parse and the lack of a robust database to which they can compare themselves. When experiencing visibility gaps and battling through manual processes to better understand spend management, procurement teams often lack the time to drive their organization's strategic goals. Finding The Right Solution If you're a CPO preparing to upgrade your organization's spend management, here are three strategies to consider: Unifying procurement processes across all facets of an organization can help you close visibility gaps while enabling your procurement team to build a better-informed strategy. For instance, clear spending policies with automated controls and approval workflows can reduce maverick spending that might go unnoticed but accumulate quickly. Additionally, consider standardizing solutions such as product and service selection to eliminate rogue spending. This can help you ensure that rogue spending is managed by exception and process rather than by mainstream access. In my experience, technology, education and strong communication across an organization are important to a successful standardization strategy. Your procurement team should be prepared to tailor processes to each department's unique needs. For example, what works for an information technology team may not be the best process for a maintenance team. Be advised that this process can be time-consuming at the outset, while your team is crafting the policies, but it should be less so once they are established. With the right kind of procurement partner, such as a group purchasing organization (GPO), spend analysis can be done in a timely and budget-friendly way that gives procurement teams complete visibility into their organizational spend in real time. (Full Disclosure: My company offers these services, as do others.) Look for a procurement partner that can not only provide the tools to access sizable spend visibility data but can also help you analyze the insights needed to build a strategic action plan that is benchmarked against current trends and customers. I've found that this type of partnership can empower procurement leaders to rise above the day-to-day operational demands and focus on driving their organizations' broader strategic objectives. It is worth noting that if your organization has existing relationships with suppliers and feels strongly about maintaining its current network, this may negate the need to work with a GPO. Otherwise, you may have to utilize new suppliers based on the options your GPO provides. The emergence of new technologies is fundamentally altering how procurement teams process their organization's spend management. One of the biggest shifts is from reflective to prescriptive reporting. Instead of looking back on spend management data to determine what's already happened, you can now use AI to predict or alter future outcomes based on the insights you're extracting. I've observed a number of organizations that invested in the use of AI-powered systems, optimizing their sourcing strategies, diversifying their supplier network and mitigating concentration risks during tumultuous economic periods. As with all new products and processes, training is important to ensure that employees are up to date and comfortable using these new technologies. Without proper training, employees may struggle, leading to confusion and errors that ultimately create the opposite of the intended effect. To help with this, host regular trainings for your procurement team that include real scenarios that users navigate on a regular basis. Final Thoughts The digital revolution in spend management isn't around the corner; it's here. I believe spend management is going to continue evolving from a necessary back-office function to a strategic growth driver. By investing in today's emerging technology, you can help position your company to thrive in tomorrow's procurement environment. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Finextra
22-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Nordea taps Mynt to roll out an expanse management system for SMEs across the Nordics
Swedish fintech Mynt has been selected by Nordea, the largest bank in the Nodics, to launch a business credit card and spend management service for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. 0 Set to go live in 2026, the partnership combines Mynt's modern spend management infrastructure with Nordea's pan-Nordic platform to deliver a white-labelled digital toolset for SMEs across the Nordics. The offering will encompass an all-in-one business card and expense management product, equipped with automated receipt handling, real-time spend controls, ERP integrations, and full accounting automation. The new solution will cover the full lifecycle of business spend - from onboarding and KYC/AML compliance to live reporting and seamless exports to accounting software. Prior to automation, processing a single expense report could take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes across entry, correction and approval. With Mynt's technology, the same task takes just 30 to 120 seconds, according to the company's own estimates - a 95% reduction in admin time. Baltsar Sahlin, Mynt CEO and co-founder, comments: 'By embedding Mynt's spend management platform directly into Nordeas offerings, we are reshaping how banks support business customers across Europe. Together we are facilitating an efficient, modern and accessible financial solution for SMEs. One that saves time, reduces admin and allows them to do what they do best: grow and deliver for their consumers.' For Mynt, the partnership marks its first major bank integration and a key step in its broader European expansion. It also follows a recent €22 million Series B funding round led by Vor Capital, with participation from Visa.
TechCrunch
17-06-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
In just 3 months, Ramp's valuation jumped to $16B, up from $13B
In Brief Spend management startup Ramp announced on Tuesday that it raised a $200 million Series E led by its largest investor, Founders Fund, at a post money $16 billion valuation. This is a jaw-dropping $3 billion increase over the $13 billion valuation Ramp announced just a few months ago in March from a $150 million secondary share sale. It's current valuation is also more than double the $7.65 billion Ramp hit a little over a year ago when it raised $150 million at a $7.65 billion post money. CEO Eric Glyman is remaining mum about revenue figures, although in March he said revenue had experienced 'incredible growth' over the previous figures it released. In the summer of 2023, he said Ramp had passed $300 million in annualized revenue. Other VCs, largely existing investors, who participated in the Series E round include Thrive Capital, D1 Capital Partners, General Catalyst, GIC, ICONIQ Growth, Khosla Ventures, Sands Capital, 8VC, Lux Capital, Stripes, 137 Ventures, Avenir Growth, and Definition Capital.
TechCrunch
17-06-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
In just 3 months, Ramp's valuation jumped to $16B from $13B
In Brief Spend management startup Ramp announced on Tuesday that it raised a $200 million Series E led by its largest investor, Founders Fund, at a post money $16 billion valuation. This is a jaw-dropping $3 billion increase over the $13 billion valuation Ramp announced just a few months ago in March from a $150 million secondary share sale. It's current valuation is also more than double the $7.65 billion Ramp hit a little over a year ago when it raised $150 million at a $7.65 billion post money. CEO Eric Glyman is remaining mum about revenue figures, although in March he said revenue had experienced 'incredible growth' over the previous figures it released. In the summer of 2023, he said Ramp had passed $300 million in annualized revenue. Other VCs, largely existing investors, who participated in the Series E round include Thrive Capital, D1 Capital Partners, General Catalyst, GIC, ICONIQ Growth, Khosla Ventures, Sands Capital, 8VC, Lux Capital, Stripes, 137 Ventures, Avenir Growth, and Definition Capital.
Bloomberg
17-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Ramp Investors Add Funding as Company Expands, Plans AI Agents
Spend-management platform Ramp gave existing investors an opportunity to double down on the six-year-old upstart with a recently closed $200 million funding round that boosted the company's valuation to $16 billion. This deal marks the fifth time that Founders Fund has led a Ramp raise. Ramp is self sustaining, investing in continued growth and has retained just under $1 billion of the $1.2 billion in total equity raised, excluding the most recent round, said Eric Glyman, chief executive officer and co-founder of Ramp. Bloomberg News reported on the raise last week.
