Bid Ops: Vendor Analysis, Solution Overview, Selection Checklist (Part 1)

When it comes to bringing artificial intelligence into procurement software, there’s been a lot of hype and very few real advances. This is especially true of sourcing tools, which despite their potential for integrating AI and machine learning, have rarely moved beyond simple use cases like auto-fill of an RFX or automatic identification of the default award winner. And even when they have added early AI-based features into their platforms, sourcing solutions mostly focus on the application of AI to the benefit of the buyer. The suppliers on the other side of the solution — not an insignificant number of users — often have been left out of the AI conversation.

This is not the case with Bid Ops, a two-year-old vendor out of San Francisco that positions its cloud-based e-sourcing tool as the first AI solution for automating procurement negotiations using adaptive target pricing. Rather than focus solely on serving the buyer, Bid Ops’ founders actually built the vendor side of their platform first, shaping the whole user experience around making negotiation faster, simpler and more pleasant for vendors. While it’s still early days, and more RPA (robotic process automation) than AI (which is early stage assisted intelligence at best) the vendor has already notched some notable wins with big customers, claiming double-digit savings rates with the likes of Berkshire Hathaway and a Fortune 100 chemical producer.

This two-part Spend Matters PRO Vendor Introduction offers a candid take on Bid Ops and its capabilities. In this first part, we provide an overview of Bid Ops’ offering and a selection requirements checklist for companies that might consider the provider. In the next part, we will provide a breakdown of what is comparatively good (and not so good) about the solution and a SWOT analysis.