At the Smarter Commerce Global Summit, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a study that says companies with high-performing procurement organizations are driving better bottom line results, according to an IBM study. These organizations report profit margins of 7.12 percent as compared to just 5.83 percent for companies with low-performing procurement organizations. Also, companies with top-performing procurement organizations report profit margins 15 percent higher than the average company - and 22 percent higher margins than companies with low-performing procurement organizations.

It turns out that small- and medium-sized brick and mortar companies can use analytical tools just as the largest corporations can-or the hottest Web-based social media start-ups or the biggest intelligence agencies with three-letter names.