The most exotic spend category? – I think I win

The most exotic spend category? – I think I win

I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable about disclosing how many years I’ve been consulting in the P2P space but spending many years doing the same sort of thing does give you a rich store of anecdotes and war stories. Something I do take a quiet delight in is finding exotic or unusual items within a spend analysis. I know a bank that bought an elephant. Working for what I thought was a boring, innocuous government agency I found ammunition as a spend category. Working in the aerospace and defense industry there are things I’ve seen procured (that I can’t disclose) that would make your hair stand on end.

But all of that diminishes to nothing today.

I feel very privileged to add to my consulting client list an organization that has procured the components of the first man made object to land on a comet.

Congratulations ESA – a magnificent achievement The best space mission since Apollo 11.

And it is relevant to purchase to pay. When implementing e-procurement and purchasing process best practice it is common to confront those people that believe they’re special – above the process. They can’t possible comply with a standardized policy because what they do is ‘special’.

Well, from now on, my benchmark of ‘special’ has changed. Landing on a comet is special – anything less is now ordinary.

Pete Loughlin can be found on twitter @peteloughlin



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