No business, small or large, can survive for long without controlling and monitoring purchases. Business-critical and high-value products and services purchased by an organization are often scrutinized. However, decentralized spending for information resources often goes unnoticed and, in terms of use, employees may not be aware of what they can and can’t do with purchased content.
Centralizing Information Resource Spend
When enterprises implement minimum spending thresholds for approvals and purchase orders, any orders below the set limit (which can be thousands of dollars) do not require oversight checks or authorization. Individuals can also purchase information resources and memberships through personal expense claims or procurement cards. Both can lead to a lack of detail in reporting which in turn can make these transactions difficult to identify and classify correctly. Furthermore, when it comes to information resources, this makes it difficult to track who has purchased what and who should have access.
Many organizations don’t rush to action when centralizing subscription-based resources. The task of consolidating and capturing these smaller orders can seem overwhelming, and the investment in doing so can seem counterproductive. The use of a specialist information management partner can be a surprisingly efficient, simple, and easy-to-implement solution.
A specialist information management partner can help with:
- Increasing spend management and control
- Maximizing return on content investment
- Improving visibility and accessibility of existing content assets
- Refining process efficiencies and increasing productivity of personnel
- Reducing risk of reputational and financial damage from non-compliance with suppliers’ terms of use
- Visualizing content spend to support digital transformation and sustainability in the supply chain
What is the solution?
Internal solutions might exist, but using a specialist partner with expertise, supplier relationships, tools, and processes that maximize efficiencies can be much more effective and practical. After an audit and implementation of tools and processes, the procurement of information resource acquisition is organized, centralized, and fully managed – enabling your organization to maximize its return on those investments.
What about compliance?
Despite efforts to educate employees about compliance, copyright infringement isn’t always top of mind. According to the 2023 Information Usage and Consumption Study, 74% of employees stated that they are aware of their company’s copyright policy, but only 44% strongly agree that copyright infringement has serious risks and implications.
With information resources consolidated and through a streamlined purchasing process, it becomes much easier to access content, monitor autorenewal clauses, preserve access to content assets when employees leave an organization, and create an opportunity to improve copyright awareness and support collaboration across the organization.
Should customers need to reuse, reproduce, or collaborate using published content, a specialist agent can introduce customers to partners, such as CCC, who can provide solutions that simplify compliant collaboration and educational resources that focus on the importance of copyright.
CCC solutions that simplify compliance provide an efficient way to manage and collaborate on content. Additionally, Px Compliance (by Prenax) sources, hosts, and summarizes all supplier terms into convenient One Page Summaries which are made available to subscribers through a dashboard. Immediately, subscribers can understand the limitations of use, attest that they have read and understood the terms, and the company demonstrably encourages compliance while being mindful of cost-effective solutions and diversion of time from other projects.
Please note: this blog was updated to reflect the most recent data from the 2023 Information Seeking and Consumption Study.