What Does an Ivalua Consultant Do for a Business?

When big businesses fail to see the value of an Ivalua consultant during their digital transformation they can be setting themselves up for a powerful system that only works at a fraction of its capacity. When it comes to a platform that has the potential to push the company up beyond the next level it is pretty much a waste to only use a portion of its potential. Hiring a consultant may seem like a hassle, but in all honesty, it is the only way to truly learn how to function and operate your investment.

What is Ivalua?

The Ivalua platform is a robust set of technological tools that all work together to maximize the purchasing power of businesses.  Ivalua is equipped with several solutions such as:

• Source-to-pay
• Supplier management
• Contract management
• Spend analysis
• Inventory collaboration

The platform provides a solution for supplier management and relationships that can be automated and dialed in to work specifically for just about any business type and structure.

The source-to-pay functionality is as good as it gets, however, in order to get the most out of all of the tools that are available, it takes a person with advanced knowledge and experience of the platform to make it work the best that it can for the specific and unique needs of a business.

Since this platform has the capacity to integrate the entire business foundation into a digital structure and bring it all into one centralized hub there is a lot that it can do, and with the help of a consultant, the administrator of the platform can learn all of the tips and tricks that it takes to make the system work better than ever imagined.

What Exactly Is a Consultant?

There might be a lot of opinions about what a consultant does and the role that one has in relation to a business, or personal level. A consultant can help you to discover opportunities to improve a certain situation.

For example, if you hire a consultant to help you implement your Ivalua platform they will meet with you and get an understanding of what your needs are in contrast to what the platform can provide.

Instead of doing the work, like a laborer or service person, the consultant will guide the client through the implementation of the system and point out ways to customize settings and parameters that best work for the business that is using the application.

• A guide
• An advisor
• An innovator
• A trusted partner

While, in some cases, you would hire an expert to initiate the implementation of the application, when you hire a consultant they will advise you on the best ways to configure your platform so that it becomes the most it can be for your business.

Instead of doing the job themselves, they will show the company how to run the show and educate the entire staff on the correct ways to add suppliers, manage spending practices, manage finances, and whatever else the business needs from the platform.

Strategic Sourcing Consultation

The very heartbeat of most enterprises is the way that the procurement department handles its sources, contracts, buying, and paying. Although Ivalua has a powerful sourcing component, the only way that it will be beneficial for the company is if it is set up correctly and dialed in for the specific needs of the company.

When it comes to the procurement process, although it will be different for every business, the consultant will be knowledgeable in the way that the system works in general. In fact, most consultants will be able to show you where you could improve your own system.

In any event, the needs of the company will vary from one instance to the next. The consultant will be able to show the administrator of the platform how to search for the highest quality sources for the needs of the company.

• Goods or services needed
• Prices of items
• Opportunites for deals
• Reputable sources
• Backup sources

Since it is artificial intelligence that will be doing most of the work it is important to understand how to make it work for you in any given circumstance.

For example, say your company is a manufacturer of a certain type of shoe that can only be made with a specific material. There are tons of materials available out there, but you only need this specific one.

Where people can do a Google search on the internet with whatever keyword that it is and find whatever answers come up in the search results, the Ivalua platform will be able to take the specific information that you give it and strategically locate suppliers that have that exact type of material and compare prices with availability so that you can have the best options available.

Yet it may seem like it is nothing more than a simple search, but there is much more to the process. Since the platform tracks, records, and stores information from all aspects of the business it can generate reports that show just where things are going good and where things could use some improvement.

The consultant will be able to guide the business through the procedures of integrating all of the information sources into the system so that each and every aspect of the company’s spending and earning are kept front and center while contemplating the next strategic financial move.

Without the help of a seasoned professional, a company will take a huge risk of improperly coordinating numbers and variables that could greatly affect the way the performance of the business is laid out in a report.

Sifting through potential sources that might provide a better price or even a  higher quality product or service based on the detailed information that your company provides can result in perfect matches that lead to huge savings that otherwise could have been missed out on.

Implementation and Structure

It goes without saying that the Ivalua platform is a sophisticated piece of technology that carries a lot of power. The Ivalua company will always take care of its clients, but there is only so much that a call to customer service can do when it comes to the implementation of the program.

Since the core of the application is housed in a cloud made up of thousands of servers it is not something that is easily configured and structured to fit the exact needs of a business, without help.

The implementation of the application alone will be a huge change for the business. It’s not like everybody signed up for a subscription for MS Office and they will all get their own Word app on their computer. The entire way that the business operates may change dramatically from where it was before the transformation.

The consultant will be able to guide the company and everybody that is involved with the project through the installation of the applications on the machines on through the entire process of setting up users and administrators within the system.

Instead of a bunch of employees all wondering what to do, they will be instructed and educated on how to use the system and what they need to do in order to get the most out of it.

Conclusion

All in all an Ivalua consultant will help a business to understand its investment and how to make it work to the best of its advantage. From the little details to the large issues, the consultant will be there every step of the way to make sure that the company gets its money’s worth for their investment.