‘The whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so. To me, that’s beautiful.’
- Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation
Everyone’s favorite TV libertarian makes a great case for freedom. It’s your money. As a private citizen you can spend it however you want. Put it in the bank, get another bad haircut, go on a cruise, or remodel the kitchen: it doesn’t matter. Do whatever you like. Whether or not people really do know best what to do with their money (compared to a financial advisor, for example), there are no money police. Consequences, maybe, but not money police. It’s your money, your life.
But when it comes to government or corporate spending, it’s a whole different story. Even with the best of intentions, all that potential for reckless spending won’t cut it when you’re accountable to shareholders and taxpayers.
In the case of corporations, there are in fact money police, though we usually refer to them more politely as procurement and finance. And they’re here to help. They make sure the company saves money, and that’s usually good for everyone.
As Spend Matters pointed out just recently in a two-part blog post, the US Government is a little behind Corporate America in terms of strategic spending. When you adopt such measures, you need business rules and compliance, but above all you need visibility into what’s happening.
It’s about time government spending got on the VMS bandwagon. Corporate procurement, HR and finance already know the benefits: compliance, visibility, faster cycle times, and risk mitigation, just to name a few.
Not everyone wants to hear about centralization when it comes to government, but when it comes to spend visibility, it’s hard to make a good case against it.