Jens Brown discusses the pitfalls, pain, and promise of spend analytics. He highlights how one institution used Spend Radar to analyze spend data from multiple systems, including two ERP systems, expense management, credit cards, and eProcurement. This resulted in insights into spending. Key challenges include data being in different systems and variability in supplier names. Spend analytics tools can help address these issues by standardizing data, classifying spending, and providing reports and dashboards. When implemented properly, spend analytics has the promise of strategic sourcing insights, compliance management, and cost reductions.