Intake and Orchestration in procurement: How do the solution providers define its role? – Focal Point

Spend Matters chose Intake and Orchestration as its main research theme for this quarter because we believe it is the fastest-growing procurement tech market segment today. If you’d like to understand more about what intake management and orchestration mean for procurement, read our Guide to Intake and Orchestration.

As part of our research, we are conducting analyst-led analysis/thought leadership, solution provider deep-dive analyses, webinars and interviews with both the practitioners who use this technology and the vendors who sell it.

Our first practitioner-focused viewpoint came from Sören Petsch, head of procurement at end-to-end e-commerce solution Rithum — How intake cuts to the point.

Our first niche vendor viewpoint providing thoughts on the need for this market segment and how the solution fulfils it comes from:

Maya Garcia-Hector of SaaS procurement orchestration platform Focal Point.

What was the gap in the market and the business need that Focal Point intended to fulfill?

“Our CEO and founder, Anders Lillevik, created Focal Point after 25 years in procurement, including procurement leadership roles, as the answer to many of the growing problems he and his teams saw daily during his tenure. In an attempt to field the growing responsibility and complexities within the role, procurement began to onboard several new ‘point solutions’ — from supplier and contract management tools to intake solutions. But the resulting tech stack was disparate, leaving procurement with fractured silos of data, unable to communicate and be drawn upon effectively for their daily use to improve efficiency.

“Focal Point was created to solve the problem of disconnected data within an organization’s procurement process. Instead of suggesting a ‘start-from-scratch’ strategy, it acts as a bridge, bringing together data from disparate procurement tools for clearer insights. The idea was to keep time-tested S2P tools intact while enhancing visibility and efficiency in procurement. The goal was to streamline processes, increase productivity and make decision-making more robust, all without ditching your trusted, legacy solutions. And it was designed with procurement professionals in mind.”

Why does procurement (and business) need this extra layer of tech?

“Many intake/orchestration customers are also users of legacy S2P suites. We built Focal Point to play nicely with the legacy solutions that procurement teams already have in place. The goal of these solutions, and Focal Point in particular, is to superpower those existing tools by connecting data silos and making the information procurement already has work for them. By siphoning all of procurement’s data neatly into one dashboard, procurement will spend less time on manual tasks and enjoy greater visibility into ongoing projects, spend by category and opportunities to improve project planning and reduce overall spend.

“The right intake/orchestration tool is invaluable — by reducing time spent on manual tasks and improving data visibility, procurement can see the big picture. Better control over spend, increased adherence to preferred suppliers, and improved contract management means procurement can spend time on ‘planned work’ — activities that work to drive value by creating strategic advantage within their organizations.”

Discover more about the vendor

Read our full analysis of Focal Point’s solution in this Vendor Analysis, part of our members’ subscription service.

Get help

You can engage Spend Matters to help you find your best-fit solution (including a current assessment of your organization, RFx and selection advisory).

Learn more

To know more about the technology, watch a recording of our webinar, “Demystifying Intake and Orchestration in Procurement.” Our analysts define what Intake and Orchestration technologies are, showcase use cases and explain how investing in these technologies could benefit your business.