Q4 2023 Insider roundup: A deep dive into procurement tech market movements; updated coverage of 15 vendors

Throughout the year our analyst team provides vendor-specific profiles and tech solution analyses as part of Spend Matters Insider content. Our coverage also explores the latest thought leadership topics about procurement and supply, the technology that serves it and comparative analyses based on demos and the scoring of 500+ RFI requirements across 12 source-to-pay (S2P) categories that create our Vendor Ranking data. In this roundup of Q4, we review the Vendor Analyses and other Insider content that the team produced in the previous quarter. We then look ahead to what members can expect in the coming months.

Exploring the world of procurement tech in Q4

Spend Matters Insider coverage in Q4 included more than just our staple Vendor Analyses. Our team keeps tabs on the latest news in the procurement world and explores ideas that will inform that world’s future. A collection of these quick takes, conference insights and solution comparisons is below.

AI in Procurement and “Autogmentation”

AI, especially Generative AI, has dominated the headlines in recent months. The introduction of new technology, however, does not represent the further removal of the human from the work place but a transformation to a new relationship with technology. Spend Matters Lead Analyst Bertrand Maltaverne has dubbed this new relationship ‘Autogmentation,’ a mixture of automation and augmentation. In this four-part series, he delves into the history of automation, AI and how procurement may proceed. Read ‘AI in Procurement and Autogmentation’:

Part 1 — (Procurement) technology is more than automation to replace people

Part 2 — The current state of AI

Part 3 — How similar is Generative AI to other previous technologies?

Part 4 — Procurement use cases of AI and Generative AI

Vendors in focus in Q4

In Q4, Spend Matters published 16 Vendor Analyses as part of our Insider coverage. As detailed below, the analysts’ work in Q4 took a special interest in solution providers that tackle issues of Intake Management and Contract Lifecycle Management.

You can find all of Spend Matters Vendor Analyses here.

Expense Management

Brex removes traditional expense reporting through use of document collection and AI and approvals through its ‘Live Budgets’ approach, streamlining the expense management process considerably. Its approach uses an all-in-one spend platform that combines expense management, corporate cards, travel and business accounts.

Contract Lifecycle Management

Evisort, which was once a promising contract analytics upstart looking to disrupt the market with its strong AI and post-signature capabilities, has evolved into a well-rounded, end-to-end CLM provider that can compete for both mid-market and large enterprise customers.

While it is best known for its end-to-end CLM for legal, procurement, sales and risk teams, CobbleStone Software’s capabilities also touch on sourcing and e-procurement, giving it broad coverage of procurement processes.

Gatekeeper combines contract lifecycle management with third-party risk management, two areas that are related but usually addressed with disparate software tools.

Category Management

Positive Purchasing’s Capella solution draws on years of experience to help category teams execute a structured and proven category management process, which many organizations fail to implement in the most efficient or effective way, by offering robust capabilities and a wealth of support and educational content available to organizations that want to guide or upskill their teams.

Spend Analytics

AnyData Solutions is used for spend analytics, contract management, supplier relationship management and ESG/performance tracking.

SpendQube is a new spend analysis tool that combines human and artificial intelligence to cleanse, categorize and draw insights from data, the last of which benefits from the consultancy background of the solution’s creators.

AP Automation

Tipalti is an AP automation specialist. In this three-part vendor analysis we begin by providing an overview of Tipalti’s integrated finance automation solution, a company-level SWOT analysis and a list of key competitors. Read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

Tradeshift has remained at the forefront of e-invoicing, funding and supply chain solutions, offering businesses the tools they need to streamline their operations and enhance their supplier relationships in an ever-evolving business landscape. Read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.

Supplier Management

Since Spend Matters first covered it in 2021, Brooklyn Vendor Assurance has transformed into Brooklyn Solutions, specifically by closing the gap between SRM and CRM by extending the initial offering on supplier-facing contract management to customer-facing contracts.

Supplier risk management

Exiger offers a comprehensive risk assessment product that encompasses various risk dimensions with a high degree of granularity and depth to reduce risks in supply chains. It makes the invisible visible through discovery and continuously monitors key issues to supply chain risk.

Intake management

PayEm specializes in intake and user-configurable workflow creation, enabling customers to capture spend at the point in which employees incur spend. While the solution addresses direct, indirect and services spend, most customers primarily use PayEm for indirect and services I2P and spend management.

Omnea offers a user-friendly intake management solution that provides deep visibility into overall request workflows with automatic documentation and uses an AI-driven recommendation engine to resolve issues of spend optimization and supplier oversight.

Opstream aims to revolutionize the way companies buy and manage spending with a self-service, AI-driven system that caters to cross-functional teams, ensures quick implementation and povdies full visibility and control over spending before it happens.

Sourcing

Supplios intends to dismantle the silos created by the numerous teams and highly manual processes that working with suppliers requires by using a supplier collaboration platform built specifically to help manufacturers work with their direct-material suppliers.

CloudEagle’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution tracks SaaS application usage to reduce a customer’s SaaS spend.

Coming up in Q1

Looking beyond Q4 and into 2024’s Q1, Insider members can expect the steady stream of Vendor Analyses to continue. In addition to that, our analysts will pursue the quarterly theme of AI.

“The Spend Matters analyst team is conducting research on how the procurement technology market uses AI (both generative and traditional),” Spend Matters analyst Abby Ommen says. “In our upcoming ‘Meet AI’ series, the team will explore exactly what features AI enables in various procurement technology categories and provide a brief market overview of AI use in each technology category.”

If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest innovations in procurement technology, consider becoming a Spend Matters Insider member.