As 2010 kicks off a new decade, North American economic markets are starting to see signs of recovery. At the same time, organizations continue to look for ways to reduce operational expenditures and provide meaningful savings, while concurrently ensuring operational and productivity efficiencies.

To accomplish this, HCMWorks, an emerging leader in indirect services procurement solutions, has witnessed a greater focus on corporate indirect services expenditures. Indirect services expenditures are costs that are not directly accountable to a cost object (such as a particular function or product), and may be either fixed or variable. Some examples of indirect services expenditures include taxes, administration, personnel, and most corporately-consumed business services such as marketing, travel, and legal.

As an emerging leader in indirect services procurement solutions, HCMWorks elected to survey the procurement marketplace to determine if the trend toward better management of indirect services continues to be a strong growth area. In 2009, Forrester Research reported that in the five-year period from 2004 – 2008, Services Procurement vendors saw an overall 32% Compounded Annual Growth Rate. In addition, HCMWorks surveyed a group of procurement professionals in order to determine how indirect services impact businesses.