Industry News Content

The coronavirus outbreak has affected supply chains around the world as the virus itself has spread from China to many countries across Asia, in Europe, the Middle East, Canada and the United States, which in recent days has experienced its first deaths from the respiratory ailment.

U.S. cases of COVID-19, the official name of the virus, have surpassed 100, The Associated Press reported Monday.

Nancy Clinton of Spend Matters Europe has highlighted information available from vendors who do supply risk management. Avetta and other vendors in this post are go-to sources for coronavirus updates, status reports and advice for procurement and supply chain professionals.

Let's take a look at the risks and ways to mitigate them.

The coronavirus has killed 1,665 people and sickened 68,500 in China, with other deaths now reported in Taiwan and France, according to Reuters on Sunday.

A special Dun & Bradstreet report, called the “Business Impact from the Coronavirus,” said the risk to companies around the world also is profound — with the outbreak hitting China’s regions that are home to “over 90% of all active businesses,” many of which are branches or subsidiaries of foreign companies. That means global supply chains will be affected.

For the buyers and category managers out there, especially those of you deep in the weeds of buying and managing commodities, here’s a quick rundown of news and thoughts from particular commodity markets. MetalMiner, a sister site of ours, scours the landscape for what matters. This week:

EcoVadis, a provider of ratings on sustainability, CSR and ESG, today announced a $200 million investment from CVC Growth Partners that puts three CVC executives on the EcoVadis board and sets the company up to expand. “EcoVadis plans to leverage the funding to expand internationally, break into new countries and further invest in its technology platform, sustainability intelligence solutions and network of rated companies,” according to its press release.

Coupa announced today that it is buying Yapta, a website that monitors airline and hotel prices in real time and rebooks at the lowest price. The addition to Coupa’s business spend management suite of offerings bolsters its travel and expense capabilities, according to the announcement.

Spend Matters Europe Editor Nancy Clinton has collected 2020 predictions from a range of procurement software experts like Basware, Ivalua, Efficio, VORTAL, State of Flux and more. The posts have run on the days leading up to the New Year, and more will run in the coming week. Here, we've consolidated the predictions and provided a highlight from each vendor.

These were the most viewed posts on Spend Matters for 2019, with a countdown to the No. 1 news story. Revisit news about Jaggaer's sale, the Avetta-Browz deal, our lists of vendors to Know and Watch, and changes at SAP. Thanks for reading Spend Matters in 2019 — and Happy New Year!

Many procurement technology firms have a short history before flaming out or being acquired, but one stalwart firm has hit a rare milestone — and has secured a strong future for itself. Scanmarket, the Denmark-based provider of strategic sourcing software, turned 20 this year — and made sure that the family business will carry on with the same mission. To learn more about what it takes to run a long-standing best-of-breed sourcing business, we talked to Scanmarket CEO Betina Nygaard for her insights about the past and the future of e-sourcing. "I think the e-sourcing process will change completely," she said.

Welcome to the December 2019 edition of Spend Matters Insider’s Hot List, a monthly look at the contingent workforce and services (CW/S) space that’s available to our PLUS and PRO subscribers. For those new to the Hot List, each edition covers the prior month’s important or interesting technology and innovation developments in the CW/S space.

As we head into December and the holiday season, we look back on the developments in November: Small service providers now ‘Open for Business’ on LinkedIn; Is the job board Indeed going gig?; Fiverr grows topline, not bottom; crowdsource testing; and news about financial services for freelancers.

SAP Ariba and Givewith today announced a partnership where Givewith’s social impact solution will be available on the SAP App Center, giving SAP clients access to a matching service that allows them to find nonprofits to give donations.

Businesses increasingly are concerned with sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and Givewith analyzes thousands of nonprofits to match with businesses’ needs to improve their social standing, which studies have shown helps the bottom line as well as aids reputations with the public and improves worker recruiting and retention.

“If just 8% of the nearly $3 trillion transacted by buyers and suppliers across the Ariba Network included Givewith, we would generate over $3 billion in funding for nonprofits,” said Paul Polizzotto, Givewith’s founder and CEO, in a press release. “As we look to tackle some of today’s most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges, we see SAP Ariba as a strong partner in unleashing the power of business transactions as an agent for social change. Together, we’re elevating the role of procurement by turning sourcing into a key component of the company’s larger business and CSR strategies.”

In a Spend Matters PRO Vendor Introduction post, our analyst Nick Heinzmann shares what he learned after spending time evaluating Givewith’s solution, Givewith Enterprise.

For the buyers and category managers out there, especially those of you deep in the weeds of buying and managing commodities, here’s a quick rundown of news and thoughts from particular commodity markets. MetalMiner, a sister site of ours, scours the landscape for what matters. This week:

Corcentric — a source-to-pay provider targeting procurement and finance groups with various software, services and capital/payment offerings — has been on Spend Matters’ radar for years as the New Jersey-based company has acquired and created solutions for the procurement technology market.

Converged source-to-pay models similar to Corcentric’s are thriving.

"Like GEP, Corcentric proves that you don't need to be a pure-play cloud software provider alone to carve out a material chunk of the fast-growing procurement solutions market," said Jason Busch, managing director of Spend Matters Nexus, which advises sponsors, boards and CEOs on M&A in the procurement sector. “Corcentric is a successful amalgam of procurement services, payment/financing, group purchasing solutions and source-to-pay technology. While the capital markets were previously confused by everything it did — including leasing — the value proposition for customers today is much clearer."