This enhanced data is the key to making quality procurement decisions.

The following screens show a top-down analysis of long-distance telecomms spending.

BIQ's sample dataset (shipped with the product) contains three years of disguised A/P data from a large regional commercial bank, comprising some 1.4M transactions and $1.7B in spending. This is actual data, although dimension labels have been changed
and the dataset time base has been altered.

First, we filter the dataset by telecomms usage.

Next, we multi-filter the dataset by the long distance vendors. Note that all dimensions are visible at all times, and every dimension is updated on every drill (the Commodity dimension has been popped out and slid on top for reference).

Next, we use the plotting feature to compare and contrast spending on MCI vs. AT&T for the three-year period 2000-2002.

The result is a good news story. It appears that a sourcing decision was made in 2000 to consolidate long distance spending with MCI. Over three years, this has largely been accomplished. The question remains, though, whether the trend has continued during 2002.

So, we change our view to look at quarters, and use a different graph type. The result is not such a good story, and it illustrates a classic sourcing problem: the original initiative has lost momentum. In fact, AT&T spending has leveled off in 2002, and is rising again. Since consolidated long-distance contracts provide about 20% savings,
we are looking at two things here: (1) a $100K savings opportunity, and (2) a sourcing initiative that needs to be re-energized.

Who is spending all this money with AT&T? We filter further by AT&T spending, and analyze the result with a Shneiderman diagram, or "treemap." The treemap shows relative spending by size of block. Note that the next level of the hierarchy is shown in see-through mode within each block, so we can understand the breakdown within the major business units. As the cursor floats over the treemap, information on the block is presented (in this example, for "Private Bank 122" within "Private Bank").

Apparently the people who haven't gotten the message are from Technology And Operations, with Global Treasury in second place. However, we can't tell from this display whether these organizations are compliant or not -- in other words, their AT&T spending may be decreasing rapidly, even though their absolute spending is high.

We get the answer with a time-based treemap, comparing Q3 2002 AT&T spending with Q4 2002 AT&T spending. In this treemap, light green indicates the smallest increase in spending (good news), and light red indicates the largest increase in spending (bad news). Colors in between light red and light green represent lesser degrees of change, black being in the middle.

We can see from this that the Technology And Operations department, for example,
has in fact increased its AT&T expenditure from Q3 to Q4, the reverse of what we would have hoped to see.

Even more interesting, though, is the spending in Branch 520. The gray color indicates that there is no baseline spend, which means that all the Q4 spend is new. It's likely that the manager of Branch 520 was unaware of the directive to channel long distance spending to MCI. One phone call will save $500 next quarter. Only a few phone calls will clean up this whole mess.