Scanmarket: Vendor Analysis, 2020 Update (Part 3) — Competitors and Market Overview, Analyst Summary

The third and final installment of this updated Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis covering Scanmarket provides a SWOT analysis of the provider and looks at Scanmarket’s competitors in a competitive segmentation analysis and comparison.

The landscape for e-sourcing (RFX, auction, category management, sourcing optimization, etc.) is still highly fragmented. There is not a single market-share leader or “dual” leadership in this sector (as is the case with Coupa and SAP Ariba for the procure-to-pay category).

However, one trend in consolidation stands out: Providers focused on the “upstream” areas like sourcing but also supplier management, contract management and analytics have a strategy of either building or buying their way into the procure-to-pay sector — or merging their capabilities with other solution providers in this market.

Yet one nearly full upstream provider focused on this market remains independent: Scanmarket.

(We say “nearly full” because it remains dependent on a partner for spend classification, and it has some functional gaps in the supplier management and contract management areas.)

Of course Scanmarket faces competitors from different segments of providers with either more targeted or overlapping functional footprints. And a number of newer generation e-sourcing providers have set a course to build out their suites to more directly compete with Scanmarket, even if this is more on a regional basis currently.

This Part 3 installment also includes recommended shortlist candidates as alternative vendors to Scanmarket and offers provider selection guidance. Finally, it provides a summary analysis and recommendations for companies considering the vendor.

Part 1 provided an in-depth look at Scanmarket as a firm and its specific solutions, and Part 2 gave a detailed analysis of the solution’s strengths and weaknesses.

Let’s take a look at Scanmarket’s opportunities and threats as well as Scanmarket’s competitors in e-sourcing.