Spend Analytics: Why even a multi-million dollar budget won’t buy you any logic (or even a good IFA it seems)

We’re still hearing it all the time from shared service leaders in every geography - cost control isn’t the only driver, but it’ll ALWAYS feature in the top three for most businesses. Especially in the current climate and the imminent possibility of a triple dip (yes that’s three dips!) recession in the UK after Q1’s rather bleak results.

And, more and more, the eyes are turning to the Procurement function to watch, analyse and ultimately control spend levels. So it never ceases to amaze me that in arguably one of the darkest global economic periods of our time, vast amounts of cash are still regularly being spent all over the world with utterly, astonishingly, poor judgement; albeit often by wealthy individuals and not major MNCs, but still gob-smackingly odd behaviour given the circs.

One particularly jaw-dropping read over my breakfast cereal, that sticks in my mind from last Autumn, was the $65m that Hong Kong tycoon Cecil Chao offered to pay as a financial reward to any man who could win the heart of his of lesbian daughter after she married her same sex partner… I’m not kidding. Wrong on so many moral and ethical levels that I’m not even sure where to begin commenting, but aside from that, who on earth is advising this man on his financial affairs? Billionaire or not, what a ridiculous waste of hard earned wonga…

But it got me thinking about what money can actually buy these days, in an increasingly commercial world that’s very axis spins on the foundation of the greenback dollar. We know it can’t buy me love. The Beatles told us that (confirmed by Cecil Chao’s rather odd "turn my gay daughter straight" bounty).

And quite clearly it’s not common sense either. My second favourite eyebrow-raising statistic was cited in a March edition of Moneyweek. Wait for it. A whopping 60% of Premiership footballers are declared bankrupt within five years of retirement . Now, please tell me again, as I’m seriously struggling to understand, who exactly is advising these guys? (Calling all IFA’s.. I think we’ve spotted a gap in the market here.) How is it even possible to earn $115,000 a week (I’m taking Rio Ferdinand’s salary as a somewhat toppy example here, but you get my point, I’m sure) and end up in the red? Most of these men are professional athletes who don’t typically drink to excess or smoke or take illicit drugs.. So where is it all going? I shudder to think.

So ruling out love, common sense, and even tactfulness, given Rio’s recent tweet to millions of followers asking them to "spare a thought for him" as he had to work on New Year’s Day (I suspect most, Rio, would probably take that opportunity rather willingly for $115K a week but who am I to judge…)

So what exactly does money buy you these days? Myself I’d like to think it buys security and peace of mind that loved ones are safe and cared for. That’s certainly what most people I know think anyway. But then I don’t know any Billionaire tycoons or premiership football players.

Another perspective, though, occurred to me when I recently read that Olympic Gold Medallist and swimmer Michael Phelps had won $100,000 playing poker at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Maybe what money actually buys you luck these days! Maybe if FIFA introduced a centralised Procurement function to keep a watchful eye over their first division football players' spending habits, they’d be joining Michael and laughing all the way to Vegas – and long into their retirements too…