Efficiency and savings are buzzwords in business, but there are few agreed benchmarks or methods of measuring success.

“In most organisations, executives have to rely on intuition or experience and simply pluck targets out of the air,” says Lance Orsmond, Founder and Chief Executive of Mobillytics, a leading developer of procurement and supply chain apps.

The company’s latest app, MAXIMIZE™, has just been launched on the Apple Store and is set to revolutionise business planning and the extraction of value from supply chains.

It was developed with strategic procurement advisor Caliba Group to provide “some art and science” to supply chain maximisation, says Orsmond.

Mobillytics chose to produce MAXIMIZE™ as a mobile app because the format puts the solution into the hands of executives – wherever they are.

MAXIMIZE™ can be used to analyse individual spend areas ranging from indirects like travel and professional services to directs like fuel or raw ingredients.

The easy-to-use set-up screen allows buyers to input their current arrangements and the supply market. This involves determining the generic or specific nature of the product or service, the number of suppliers, market capacity as well as the organisation’s history of market engagement.

The set-up also evaluates the difficulty of the implementation process and the cost of change - all at the touch of a screen.

The app then takes users through scenarios and allows them to see the effects of

changing various components. What if they switched suppliers, or increased the size of their procurement team?

APP PUTS VALUE CREATION AT YOUR FINGERTIPSby Allan Leibowitz

“Maximize™ enables a unique, standardised and innovative methodology for you to maximize your stakeholder influence.”

VALUE CREATION AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Caliba Group’s Managing Director Jim Cowan explains that the MAXIMIZE™ simulation is based on many years of procurement experience, and understanding the drivers of cost reduction potential and project complexity across a range of categories and sectors.

“It replicates what can be achieved with Excel and copious data input, but also takes into account the impact of a number of variables most procurement professionals might overlook or not have a handle on,” he says. “And it does it almost instantly.”

The strength of MAXIMIZE™ lies in its robust calculations and sexy functionality. “There’s no

Allan Leibowitz is a business journalist and marketing communications/content marketing

consultant based in Brisbane.

need to take wild guesses or run through elaborate Excel formulae. MAXIMIZE™ gives you a standard methodology to support all your spend decisions – one that stands up to scrutiny and can be adapted quickly on the fly,” says Orsmond.

The analysis is summarised on a single page, with easy-to-understand graphs and indicators that show the savings unambiguously. The summary can be personalised with corporate livery and emailed to stakeholders in a single click.

“But even better than that, the app can be used in real time on the shop floor, or in the boardroom, with users

able to demonstrate the assumptions and show the impacts of any changes to stakeholders at any time,” he adds.

“You can even do it in a taxi on your way to a supplier meeting.”

Cowan stresses that he constantly hears about procurement’s major challenge of establishing engagement with the business and achieving buy-in. “This app goes a long way towards that by making sure stakeholders ask the right questions upfront and by giving them instant access to all the key information they need to make a decision,” he explains.

Orsmond, an innovation veteran, does not underestimate the “influence of glass”. Business is moving away from paper, and business professionals are finding it far easier to influence their stakeholders with an interactive, mobile device in their hands. “There’s enormous power in being able to access data on the move, especially when you can instantly bring up quality charts and graphs that can be used dynamically to answer the ‘what if?’ questions. Excel can’t do that. Acrobat can’t do that and neither can Powerpoint.”

And in an environment where executives are increasingly relying on dashboards and concise reports, MAXIMIZE™ stands head and shoulders above the other tools in the market.

App innovation in the corporate market is now outstripping consumer apps, and MAXIMIZE™ exemplifies the use of the platform to influence stakeholders and quickly drive change.

MAXIMIZE™ is available on a subscriptions basis via the Mobillytics website and thereafter downloaded from the App Store. No additional in-app purchases are required – although add-ons may be introduced if there is demand for additional functionality.

VALUE CREATION AT YOUR FINGERTIPS