Bid Ops: Vendor Analysis, 2021 — Solution overview, strengths/weaknesses, SWOT, Bid Ops competitors, tech-selection tips

Despite the merger and acquisition frenzy in the procurement technology market of the past few years, the upstream source-to-contract (S2C) market continues to remain crowded. For organizations evaluating a sourcing solution, not only can they choose from 10 source-to-pay (S2P) players, they also can select from multiple mini-suites (S2C) or dozens of other vendors in pure-play e-sourcing and supplier management.

Admittedly, it can be hard to differentiate from with the number of options available, and in sourcing specifically, unless an upstart offers decision optimization, RPA (robotic process automation), specialized analytics, semantic parsing or some other advanced technology, they can easily get lost in the sea of standardized options.

Bid Ops is a younger entrant making waves in the e-sourcing market by differentiating on automated negotiation support, bill-of-material import, intelligent pricing suggestion and automated KPI roll-up against supplier profiles. These capabilities, among others, empower procurement organizations to conduct more events with far less (or even no) manual effort while bringing more spend under management, especially for non-strategic or standardized categories like MRO, where analysis is minimal and most of the process can be standardized. For many Bid Ops customers, which include both mid-market process manufacturers and enterprise-level discrete manufactures, the value prop of working with a rapidly iterating direct sourcing specialist is proving compelling — and has made it one of our 50 Providers to Watch in recent years.

This Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis provides an overview of Bid Ops and its solutions for automated e-sourcing solutions and supplier management. It explores the concept behind Bid Ops and how that fuels the platform, application and supporting services that the vendor delivers. This post also includes a look at Bid Ops’ competitors and key analyst takeaways on strengths and weaknesses.