Beverage giant taps ePlus to provide an interactive view of its spending landscape
Herndon, VA — March 30, 2005 — PepsiCo Inc., one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, said today it has implemented spend analysis services from ePlus inc. for its domestic operations. The project involves the use of ePlus' Spend+ VisualEngine graphical spend mapping tool and other Spend+ services to analyze Pepsi's spend.
Pursuant to the agreement, ePlus has aggregated, cleansed and normalized spend data from all domestic Pepsi divisions; ported the cleansed data into the Spend+ VisualEngine application; and configured the VisualEngine software to incorporate Pepsi-specific business rules.
ePlus hosts the application to provide access for Pepsi's procurement officers.
"In a company as large as Pepsi, the sheer volume of spend data poses formidable obstacles to efforts to see where money is being spent and where costs can be trimmed," said Ken Farber, president of ePlus Content Services Inc. and ePlus Systems Inc. "The Spend+ VisualEngine is being used to cut through the clutter to provide a clear and interactive view of the spending landscape through visual mapping."
Farber explained that the Spend+ VisualEngine utilizes graphical boxes of different size, shape and color and other visual cues, to visually illustrate spending patterns uncovered by the software's analysis of corporate purchasing data. The largest exceptions, based on Pepsi's business rules, float to the top of each map, making it easier to pinpoint the most critical areas of concern.
A dozen or more dimensions of data can be presented on each screen, and more detailed information can be viewed by drilling down to associated layers of data, he said.
PepsiCo has annual revenues of $29 billion. Its principal businesses include Frito-Lay snacks, Pepsi-Cola beverages, Gatorade sports drinks, Tropicana juices and Quaker foods. Its portfolio includes 16 brands that generate $1 billion or more each in annual retail sales.
For more information on best practices for spend analysis, see the following SDCExec.com articles:
