The Featured Feature: Introducing A New Column on Standout Procurement Tech Capabilities

Software is eating the world, and there’s no sign the beast is even close to satiated.

Nearly seven years after venture capitalist Marc Andreessen’s oft-quoted defense of the long-term viability of companies like Facebook and Amazon, businesses have more options than ever when it comes to selecting enterprise software services. Along with this glut of technology providers also comes a sense of déjà vu — the same kind of companies pushing the same features that, for the most part, offer the same solution to the same problems procurement faces on a yearly basis.

Here at Spend Matters, however, we strive to bring clarity to the increasingly murky procurement technology market. We help procurement organizations and their partners differentiate providers pushing mundane, table stakes capabilities from the truly standout products. We do so through regular reporting on provider developments, deep dive vendor reviews and our data-driven approach to ranking and analyzing procurement technology offerings. And starting next week, we’ll be bringing readers one more way to learn about providers that are offering truly unique solutions.

In The Featured Feature, a new monthly editorial column, we ask technology providers, “What is the one unique feature in your product that makes it stand out from the competition? How is this feature truly unique, and how does it help you win — and keep — business?” The subjects of these interviews will have received standout scores in the Spend Matters SolutionMap process, providing an objective benchmark for us to call out what separates one solution feature from the rest of the pack. Readers will get a quick tour of the feature of the month, as well as context on how customers use the capability to their advantage and why our analysts think procure organizations should take note.

Interested to learn more? Check out our first entry, which features (get it?) Ivalua and its workflow capability.