340 suppliers x 8 orders X 12 months X $13.62 electronic order savings = $444,556.80.
The savings are big, and that is just the purchase order process and taking electronic orders to 68% of your supplier base. What additional savings are possible when focusing on the other transactions in the procure to pay cycle? Sure there will be incremental costs, one-time and on-going, which were not included in this analysis. But really, the on-going VAN and variable costs of more electronic orders will not erode the savings outlined above all that much. As for the one time on boarding costs of initial implementation/integration with each of these suppliers, there are upfront costs, but these are modest in comparison to the multi-year cost savings of on boarding new suppliers.
So, are you looking for 2010 efficiency opportunities this year? Supplier enablement is one place to start.
Here's other ways we think you'll find efficiencies in 2010, particularly as it relates to B2B and enterprise integration. We believe business integration management should seek to maximize return on investment in integration tools, enhance productivity, continue pursuit of the perfect transaction (transaction or series of transactions being a touch-free error-free events across, or within, organizations), seek solutions/services with a low total cost of ownership, with vendor managed risk, from parties that are able to manage and execute solutions, where partners are long term and positive outcome oriented.
Aberdeen research source: http://www.aberdeen.com/c/report/sector_insights/5097-SI-supplier-enablement-enterprise.pdf