Buyers Group (CBG) Overview

Overview
The Compleat Buyers Group, when combined with Compleat Purchase to Pay (P2P) and / or Employee Expenses browser software, delivers Spend Control, enabling organisations to save money by simply paying less for what they already purchase.

Manual Purchasing Pain Points
All organisations recognise the pain points of a manual purchasing process:

• The selection of suppliers usually reflects the personal preference of the person placing the order.
• Different locations and departments use different suppliers that offer the same goods and services and often pay substantially different prices for exactly the same items.
• The number of suppliers in use continually grows.
• Few if any of the purchasing staff have any formal training in purchasing, which often results in paying premium prices on poor payment terms.
• Unless the organisation has a procurement / purchasing manager (and most small to medium sized organisations do not), there is no one in the organisation who is responsible for maximising the effectiveness of spend.
• The process of creation and allocation of budgets down department lines to departmental budget holders exacerbates the fragmentation of corporate spending.
• Any previous attempts to consolidate spending, or use buying groups has failed, because it proved impossible to ensure that the staff only used the nominated suppliers, goods and services.

Everyone recognises that whilst the organisation is pretty good at purchasing major items and services, the vast majority of the smaller “overhead” based expenditure is fragmented and the organisation is paying more than it needs to on pretty much everything it buys.

Of more concern, the wasted money is not anybody’s problem to resolve, because no one is responsible.

The Compleat Buyers Group enables organisations to take control over the corporate spending and deliver considerable savings, but without the need to hire additional staff. Effectively, it is “outsourcing” the expertise and processes to deliver Spend Control.

Compleat Buyers Group (CBG)
Consider the cultural and administrative problems involved in trying to implement a coherent and structured buying strategy using a purely manual purchasing process. It is close to impossible.

CBG is only available to organisations that utilise the Compleat P2P and / or Employee Expenses browser based software, as these applications deliver the structure and control that guarantee staff conform to the purchasing strategy.

CBG has built preferential trading agreements with hundreds of suppliers for “general overhead” goods and services and passes on the preferential pricing to CBG Members. In almost all instances, the buying power of CBG ensures that the prices achieved are considerably less than a single organisation could achieve, however diligent and competent their purchasing skills (see the CBG Spend Categories Factsheet for further information).

CBG is provided against an annual membership fee (calculated on the number of users and locations of the member) and is an additional service option for Compleat P2P and Employee Expenses software users.

Control of Suppliers, Goods and Services
Compleat P2P and Employee Expenses software provides the means to limit a user to specific suppliers, subsets of their products, services and delivery addresses.

Whilst the organisation has the ability to allow the use of any supplier, once a decision has been made to utilise a specific supplier (whether a CBG supplier or not), the software ensures that the user MUST use that nominated supplier, or requires additional purchase order approval authority for the exceptions.

It is this “lock down” functionality that enables the organisation to realise the potential savings from the CBG and deliver the short return on investment available. And the savings continue months and years into the future.

Automated “Catalogues”
CBG has created (and maintains / updates daily) the comprehensive electronic catalogues of 10,000’s of items that contains the products and services of CBG suppliers, reflecting the relevant supplier’s product codes, descriptions, unit & measurement, current prices (etc).

This centralised management of CBG Catalogues is totally unique, improving the ease of use and driving user adoption because it is so simple and fast to use. The CBG Catalogues also ensure that every order is correct, using the supplier’s product codes, descriptions and pricing. Accurate orders results in correct deliveries, correct purchase invoices and reduce the cost and implications of errors.

The changes to the CBG catalogues are automatically downloaded to CBG client’s Compleat Purchase to Pay and Employee Expenses servers each night, providing the Compleat user with the current products and services and making the software extremely easy to use.
 The Compleat Buyers Group’s unique approach Catalogue Management overcomes the costs, lack of control and training requirements associated with “Punch Out” technologies.

Quantification of the “Warranted Minimum Savings” Potential
The objective of the Compleat Buyers Group (CBG) is to save our clients money. The more clients spend and save through CBG, the stronger our proposition is for a supplier to maximise those savings and the better the prices enjoyed by both existing and new clients. We all have a common interest.

The process used by CBG enables prospective clients to fully evaluate the financial proposition and the potential savings prior to making a commercial decision.

Experience has enabled the Compleat Buyers Group to develop a two stage process that quantifies the potential savings for each prospective client (for further details on exactly how the review process takes place, download the Compleat Buyers Group Spend Review Process Factsheet).

The Short Form Review Savings Estimate includes a conservative “Warranted Minimum Saving”, which is followed by an in depth Detailed Review Savings Analysis that fully quantifies the savings potential for each organisation and how those savings will be achieved.

Short Form Review Savings Estimate
The Short Form Review is a free service and has three distinct objectives:

1. Quantification of the savings potential available through the Compleat Buyers Group.

2. Quantification of the suitability and cost of a fully deployed Compleat Purchase to Pay and / or Employee Expenses software takes Compleat’s SCORE methodology.

3. The return on investment (ROI) based on the savings potential set against the cost of the deployed Compleat solution.

The Short Form Review meeting takes place at the client site and usually requires between 90 and 120 minutes.

Compleat analyses the information and provides a detailed proposal and associated ROI based on the “Warranted Minimum Savings” and probable savings potential.

The proposal provides the information to enable an educated decision on whether to pursue the opportunity further.

Detail Review Savings Analysis
The very last step in the purchasing process is to undertake the Detailed Review Savings Analysis. The Detailed Review involves many man days of the Compleat Buyers Group senior resources and delivers a project document that is the catalyst for the implementation of Compleat Purchase to Pay software and delivery of the savings potential from the moment that the system goes live.

The Detailed Review process takes place at the client’s site and usually involves at least two Compleat buyers’ staff for a minimum of one day.

The process requires access to the purchase invoices of the client for a representative period of one to three months, suitable working space and access to a photocopier. Compleat will capture the line by line detail of all relevant purchase invoices in the period including the product, service and prices paid. This usually runs into thousands of individual transactions.

The Compleat Buyers Group then collates the information and quantifies the potential savings for the specific item (or suitable equivalent), as part of the Savings Summary Report. This process will also cover services, contracts and term agreements (with the relevant renewal dates). CBG prices will then be sourced from the CBG suppliers for the business to provide a definitive comparison and calculate the potential savings. This process takes between 4 - 6 weeks to complete, although we would expect to be able to confirm the Warranted Minimum Savings potential within 2 weeks from the site visit.

For the majority of organisations that undertake the Detailed Review process, the identified savings offer a cash based ROI of 6 months or less against the fully deployed Compleat P2P solution and annual membership to CBG.

CBG Membership Services
CBG Membership provides full access to the preferential prices of all CBG suppliers delivered through the automated catalogues within Compleat’s software.

Membership also includes a dedicated account manager with up to 8 annual site visits to discuss existing and new areas of savings and on-line telephone support during normal working hours.

CBG also offers services for energy negotiations, corporate insurance benchmarking and a contract renewal service that reviews existing purchasing agreement prior to their renewal with a focus on reducing costs.

Additional Services
Compleat offers a very broad range of supplementary services to members for an additional fee.

Active Cost Management is the provision of a professional buyer to take the lead in the execution of making the savings and enable organisations to focus on the expenditure that matters the most. Active Cost Management offers all the benefits of fully outsourced management of overheads (i.e. Facilities Management) but in a very cost-effective way. Identified savings are implemented rapidly through the provision of the additional expert resource. In the initial period of the project, clients often have a Compleat Buyer on-site for one to three days per week.

Other services include Purchasing Health Check, Product Sourcing, e-Auction, Payment Analysis and Overspend Recovery, Energy and Carbon Reduction projects, Purchase Academy training and Interim Placement of CBG Buyers. Full details of Membership and additional services are available in the Compleat Buyers Group Membership Services factsheet.

Ease of Use and Productivity
Compleat P2P / Employee Expenses software is extremely easy to use and delivers very significant productivity gains through the automation of slow, laborious and paper intensive manual purchasing and employee expenses processes.

When combined with CBG, the organisation will make significant savings on what it currently buys simply by paying less and implementing stringent control over the spending habits of its staff.

Compleat Spend Control is unique.

The only question left is whether it is worth investing 90 – 120 minutes of your time to undertake the Short Form Savings Review and quantify if Compleat Spend Control is relevant to your business.

About Compleat Software
Compleat Software is a UK organisation and was formed in 1999. In April 2008 the organisation secured investment through the Stockford Group and has been expanding rapidly to meet the growing demand for Purchase to Pay and Employee Expenses automation software from the small to medium sized business community.

The Compleat Buyers Group was launched in January 2011, enabling our clients to make significant savings on their purchasing simply by paying less on what they already buy. The leveraged purchasing power of the Compleat Buyers Group is delivering clients a compelling cash based ROI in as little as six months for a fully operational Compleat Spend Control solution.

Compleat Software sells through a rapidly growing number of leading UK accounting software resellers that provide local expertise, geographical coverage and vertical market specialisation.

Today, Compleat has over 4,500 users that collectively spend over £2 billion per annum using Compleat Purchase to Pay and Employee Expenses automation software.

Potential Return on Investment
The ROI calculations are simple and based on hard cash that never leaves your bank account and drops directly to the bottom line profit.

A small reduction in the cost of your discretionary spend achieved through the Compleat Buyers Group, combined with a reduction in maverick budget overspend will usually represent a hard cash ROI of under 6 months for most organisations.

The savings then continue far into the future, increasing profit and improving cashflow.

It’s time to take control of corporate spending

• Compleat is enabling organisations to take control of corporate spending.
• Improved productivity through purchasing and employee expenses automation
• Significant savings through the Buyers Group by paying less for what you already buy
• Delivering improved cashflow and profitability

Compleat is priced to be affordable, scalable and designed from the bottom up to increase productivity and efficiency throughout every organisation.