The Industry News Category

We, like a lot of folks, said “whoa” this morning when reading about Amazon’s announcement that it was buying Whole Foods. It stopped us in our tracks, which is not a surprise. For if we were to dissect our personal household spending, Whole Foods would certainly top our lists, like many other families who can afford it, no doubt. But what’s curious from our vantage point is not what Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods — if approved by shareholders and if it passes regulatory hurdles — means for our own credit card bills. Rather, we’re keen to see what it means for Amazon Business and the intersection of business and consumer buying.

Jaggaer announced earlier Monday it would merge with Pool4Tool, a Europe-based provider of direct materials procurement solutions. This Spend Matters PRO research brief provides customer recommendations, primarily for organizations already using or considering using Pool4Tool, especially in North America. It also provides insight into commercial, technology and deployment and support considerations surrounding the combination of the two providers, as well as select alternative providers in some of the markets in which Pool4Tool competes.

Jaggaer’s merger with Pool4Tool creates a combined entity approaching $100 million in annual revenues spread across nearly 1,000 customers. That would mean about $100,000 per customer per year, which clearly has a nice ring to it. After going public as SciQuest, then private and then public again before being acquired by Accel-KKR, in May 2016, for $509 million, Jaggaer’s capitalization history is unusual. Throughout that time, the company has made numerous acquisitions that nicely cover the breadth of the source-to-pay (S2P) application space. But it has never promoted itself as a soon-to-be-finished integrated platform — no such vapor.

Jaggaer and Pool4Tool announced Monday the two providers would merge, revealing what was probably one of the better known procurement and supply chain industry secrets in recent memory. The combination creates the only technology provider in the market with end-to-end indirect and direct materials procurement coverage, the companies said in a press release.

Jose Varela, vice president of global sourcing for 3M, took the time to chat with Spend Matters about how one of the global industrial leaders in innovation sees the challenging sourcing and risk landscape both today and into the future. (ICYMI, here’s Part 1.)

What’s clear is how the maturity of the overall organization and the forward-thinking nature in 3M’s DNA result in streamlined collaboration, both internally and with the company’s myriad suppliers — more than 100,000 around the world.

But how is Varela’s organization using technology — procurement tech and otherwise — to compete with the big boys in 2017 and beyond? And how hard does he have to work to prove the value his procurement organization provides to his boss?

As he looked out his window at the sunny spring day in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota, Jose Varela seemed upbeat and rather excited about where sourcing operations are headed for what was once known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company — better known today as 3M. Perhaps that’s because he’s somewhat of a newbie. “I’m new to sourcing,” Varela said. “I’ve been in this position less than a year.” He’d previously been a managing director with 3M Brazil, where there were undoubtedly many more sunny days outside his window than he encounters in the Great White North.

I stopped by a party Wednesday that is all too uncommon in Chicago: a tech firm celebration. Specifically, I received an invitation from fellow Enterprise Irregular Michael Fauscette to attend a party celebrating G2 Crowd’s recently announced $30 million funding round, and I decided to take him up on it. G2 Crowd is Azul Partner’s (our parent company) downtown Chicago neighbor and one of the few research/analyst/tech shops in the Midwest. But unlike other tech analyst firms, G2 is taking an approach to tech research centered entirely on crowdsourcing reviews from users — and then analyzing, packaging and publishing the data in various formats.

I attended a Q&A session with a handful of the “30 under 30” winners in supply management at ISM 2017, and all I can say is that these young professionals from firms like GE, Johnson & Johnson and Coach are indeed impressive (see some of our interviews in the links below). The competition for the designation is increasing, and the winners are increasingly interested in supply management from the get-go. In the first year of the program, only 17% of the winners came into the industry proactively with a supply (chain) management degree, but 40% of winners this year (the third year) were supply management graduates and practitioners.

At a big procurement conference, how do you get a procurement manager into your booth? The answer is simple (and somewhat sexist, I might add). Find an attractive female — maybe we’ll see a guy one of these years — and a gimmick. In the past, AECSoft, a former vendor in the space, was one that was successful in driving traffic by bringing a model — I think she was Miss Lebanon — to the conference and having her circulate around the floor and hang out at the booth. This year, Jaggaer continued this tradition with the “Spend Slayer,” an archer — or ”archerette,” if you will — who circulated around the exhibit hall with a bow.

Aside from the provider/solutions expo, technology has always been something of an afterthought for attendees at ISM’s annual conference, at least as I’ve seen it. While a handful of sessions have addressed technology, it’s safe to say that for many of the delegates and ISM members over the years, it has been on the lower end of the priority spectrum, at least from what they plan to get out of the show. But this year something changed.

Earlier Tuesday, former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron gave the keynote address at ISM. I tried to live tweet some of his more memorable statements (see the highlights below or the full summary @jasondbusch). Cameron’s was a heartfelt, candid and relevant talk — his first since leaving office to such a crowd, apparently — by a still young politician with a deft rhetorical touch.

The Tuesday session of ISM’s annual event kicked off with a keynote from David Cameron, former prime minister of the United Kingdom. In a speech covering various geopolitical and public policy issues, Cameron explored how the forces of globalization, automation and the environment are changing global business and the supply chain. Missed the speech? Check out some of the more quotable quotes Cameron’s keynote below, including his advice for U.S. President Donald Trump.