New Year Insights for the procurement solutions and services marketplace 2023: Simfoni

For several years now, Spend Matters has been collecting and publishing a series of articles about predictions and insights on procurement, supply and services trends for the year ahead from expert tech and service providers in the market.

This year is no different and we’ve framed the subject around “insights,” highlighting providers’ observations from the year they’ve left behind and how they see them shaping the year ahead.

This series will run from mid-December to mid-January, then our analyst Bertrand Maltaverne will wrap up with his own take on the key themes that emerge.

In no order of preference, other than by the date they dropped into our digital letterbox, today let’s hear from Stefan Dent, Co-Founder & Chief Alliances Officer at Simfoni.

Market movements in procurement — Experts at Simfoni predict trends and innovations for 2023 and beyond

With a worsening global economy, organizations are leaning on procurement to deliver savings in the face of rising costs, while also delivering on ESG goals, which have become a board-level priority.

We are witnessing a trend with CPOs turning to composable procurement technology — integrating AI and machine learning to increase ROI from existing technology without net new investment.

CPOs want solutions that augment rather than replace, to deliver an enhanced user experience (UX) which drives compliance and savings. This is important as it is daunting (particularly when there are multiple procurement applications in play) for users to figure out where to go, resulting in poor UX. In response, Simfoni delivers intake solutions that act as a ‘single user interface’ to address this issue with demand prioritized to the relevant specialist application.

We are also seeing a focus on tail spend as a source of value. With the advancement of composable procurement, innovators are tapping into the potential of specialized tail solutions that operate alongside existing systems. We’ve identified three drivers that brought tail spend into focus in 2022 that we fully expect will be amplified in 2023:

1. A fundamental shift in priorities to purchase sustainably and responsibly
2. CPOs seeking savings from tail spend due to cost pressures in direct spend
3. Poor user experience when sourcing tactical spend

A focus on the overall user experience will also be important over the next few years. Over 75% of user dissatisfaction with procurement relates to poor UX. When users lack intuitive purchasing tools they go rogue, exposing the enterprise to risk and an increasing volume of low-value vendors which exacerbates the problem. Complicated sourcing tools work well in the hands of professionals but giving access to casual users is like giving the keys of a Lamborghini to a learner driver.

Thanks to Simfoni for being a part of the series, and look out for more insights for the year ahead.

If you need to find the right procurement technology and provider for your business needs next year, Spend Matters “Procurement Technology Buyer’s Guide” and TechMatch can help.

For granular analysis and comparisons of procurement technology solutions, subscribe to Spend Matters PRO.

And if you are looking for procurement services providers to help you with your 2023 decisions, look no further than our Procurement Services Market Landscape Directory.