Value of dark data – breaking through procurements final frontier

Dave HenshallProcurement Analytics

The most game-changing knowledge lies in the realm of things you don’t know you don’t know:

Value of dark data – breaking through procurement’s final frontier

Understanding Your Dark Knowledge Universe

Value of dark data: breaking through procurements final frontier – momentarily consider that you don’t know most things.

With data growing at an exponential rate and spend management becoming increasingly complex, additional analytical lever’s need activating in the procurement process. Ensuring the analytical capacity to meet these demands is essential not only to the spend data management process but the entire procurement function.

More importantly, quantifying the benefits in a way that resonates with the C-suite will also increase the strategic importance of the procurement function. Dashboards are required, showing high-level views of current and historical trends to demonstrate progress as well as the areas where improvement are necessary to executives.

Once senior managers have visibility into such data, they will demand actionable insights that drive value.  The realization of such benefits elevates procurement analytic capabilities from an afterthought to a core competency.

The CPP Knowledge Universe illustrates this.

CPP Knowledge Universe

CPP Knowledge Universe

Perhaps the most valuable insight is not being able to find answers to the questions you have, but finding answers to the questions you never before had. To be truly innovative, you need to know what you don’t know AND what you don’t know you don’t know.

These four zones can be displayed in the four quadrant “ knowledge matrix.” The four quadrants represent:

  • A) What you know that you know;
  • B) What you don’t know that you know;
  • C) What you know that you don’t know;
  • D) What you don’t know that you don’t know.

While many companies have quadrant A covered, Procurement Analytics can have a tangible impact on quadrants B, C, and especially D.

CPP Knowledge Matrix

CPP Knowledge Matrix

Value of dark data: breaking through procurements final frontier

Conclusion

Many companies still struggle to deal with the data demands of increasingly complex supply chains, disparate ERP systems, and organizational barriers, etc. They struggle to discover insights that reveal something we would have never thought to ask about in the first place. Procurement Analytics provides the answer.

When you understand that most game-changing knowledge lies in the zone where you don’t know, what you don’t know. Leveraging your big data, empowers you to contemplate new possibilities that you are unaware of but are just one question away from figuring out.

Nuff said