What Makes Them Great: A Collection of Spend Matters SolutionMap Analyses

No procurement software vendor is perfect for every business scenario. Even if a technology provider has outstanding capabilities in some areas, companies that can consistently perform above multiple functional or customer benchmarks are rare. This is why specialist solutions continue to successfully challenge big name providers, winning customer showdowns through unique approaches to meeting organizational needs. 

To help our readers understand what sets these unique vendors apart from the rest, we launched in June a new SolutionMap column. Called “What Makes It Great,” each brief shares insights from quarterly SolutionMap reports, exploring what makes these technology providers great for reasons that a simple graphic would fail to capture.

Based on the rigorous SolutionMap evaluation process and customer reference reviews, “What Makes It Great” takes a fact-based approach to surfacing what makes individual vendors excel. Below we round up some quick-hit summaries of the companies we’ve profiled so far. 

Aquiire (E-Procurement)

Company Info:

• Founded in 2000, relaunched with new management in 2015
• HQ: Cincinnati
• 70+ customers across all global markets
• 85 employees

Where Aquiire is great: Aquiire stands out relative to peers for driving innovation in e-procurement centered on the user experience and data management. It delivers both a user interface and shopping experience that is fresh and easy-to-use.

Standout features and capabilities include:

• User experience and enablement combined with procurement control
• Top-performing catalog management and requisitioning solution scores
• Strong customer satisfaction

Best-fit customer scenario: A top-performing Nimble or CIO-Friendly e-procurement solution is desired.

Check out the full analysis here. 

ConnXus (Supplier Management)

Company Info:

• Founded in 2010
• HQ: Mason, Ohio
• 16 customers across all global markets
• 30 employees

Where ConnXus is great: ConnXus’ sets the standard not only for what to expect in a modern supplier diversity solution but also what organizations should look for overall when searching for a Nimble supplier management technology provider.

Standout features and capabilities include:

• User experience including supplier collaboration
• Supplier Management Configuration
• Best-in-class turnkey support for supplier diversity, nimble buying requirements
• Customer favorite

Best-fit customer scenario: Organizations that identify with the Nimble buying persona for supplier management, including desire for ease of use and modern collaboration mechanisms.

Check out the full analysis here. 

EC Sourcing (Sourcing)

Company Info:

• Founded in 2001
• HQ: Morristown, New Jersey
• 150+ customers across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the South Pacific
• 21 employees

Where EC Sourcing is great: EC Sourcing excels at delivering both foundational — and in certain cases advanced — functional capability to meet the strategic sourcing technology needs of most procurement organizations.

Standout features and capabilities include:

• An ideal fit for the nimble sourcing buying persona
• Configurability and ability to meet unique requirements
• Customer favorite 

Best-fit customer scenario: A nimble sourcing solution is desired with strong foundational capability.

Check out the full analysis here. 

OpusCapita (E-Procurement)

Company Info:

• Offices in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Poland, Latvia and the U.S.
• 3000+ customers across the Nordics, DACH, Benelux, U.K., North America, Australia
• 400+ employees

Where OpusCapita is great: OpusCapita brings significant capability outside of e-procurement and procure-to-pay (P2P) alone in such areas as product information management, liquidity treasury management and even payments.

Standout features and capabilities include:

• Best-in-class core “plumbing”
• Role-based enablement
• Advanced capabilities that stand out from competitors such as integrated shopping and requisitioning capability 

Best-fit customer scenario: An overall Nimble e-procurement solution is desired.

Check out the full analysis here. 

SynerTrade (Supplier Management)

Company Info:

• Founded in 1999
• HQ: Munich, Germany
• 600+ customers across Europe, Americas, Asia, Middle East, Africa
• 250+ employees 

Where SynerTrade is great: While SynerTrade excels in multiple areas, the provider is particularly strong in supplier management, for which it earned an above-the-benchmark score in the Q2 2018 Supplier Management SolutionMap, outperforming even specialist providers that focus exclusively on this segment.

Standout features and capabilities include:

• Above-the-benchmark performance in core supplier management areas
• Specialized enabling capability for manufacturers
• Clever enabling technology and capability that improve supplier management 

Best-fit customer scenario: A Nimble supplier management solution, strategic procurement technologies suite or source-to-pay suite is desired.

Check out the full analysis here. 

Go Deeper

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