P2P Content

Many technology providers could argue they are part of the P2P space, but as we discussed in Part 2 of this series, the extent of a solution’s P2P capabilities can vary greatly from one provider to another. In the case of Procurify, we view the provider more as an e-procurement player than a full P2P suite, since it does not currently offer true invoice-to-pay support (e.g. features for invoice capture, validation and approval). To compare Procurify with its likely competitors, then, we must evaluate the solution against those that offer similar e-procurement capabilities, whether as part of suites that offer full P2P packages or from specialists. In this light, Procurify hits a sweet spot for small and mid-size businesses and, as defined by Spend Matters’ SolutionMap personas, has a Nimble approach that helps it differentiate its solution from competitors.

This final installment of our three-part Spend Matters PRO Vendor Snapshot series covering Procurify offers a competitive analysis and comparison with other e-procurement and P2P technology providers. Part 1 and Part 2 of this PRO research series provided a company and deep dive solution overview, a UX/UI ranking, product strengths and weaknesses, and a recommended fit analysis for what types of organizations should consider Procurify.

Procurify, a seven-year-old provider of spend management software, is filling a market need for Nimble e-procurement solutions, the category of Spend Matters’ SolutionMap where Procurify’s solution fits. With 400 customers and 25,000 active users, Procurify is offering real value to an underserved slice of the e-procurement market, small and mid-size businesses. And with $14 million in current funding, we'd wager additional investments on the product and business side are on the horizon that would only reinforce its SMB market presence and its broader P2P capabilities.

This Spend Matters PRO Vendor Snapshot, Part 2 of the series, explores Procurify’s strengths and weaknesses, providing facts and expert analysis to help procurement organizations decide whether they should consider the vendor. Part 1 of our analysis provided a company and detailed solution overview, as well as a recommend fit list of criteria for firms considering Procurify. The third part of this series will offer a SWOT analysis, user selection guide, competitive alternatives, and additional evaluation and selection considerations.

This week’s vendor spotlight in the SolutionMap Customer Insights report focuses on customer reviews of the source-to-pay suite provider Zycus, whose applicable SolutionMap categories for this report are in Source-to-Pay, Procure-to-Pay and Strategic Procurement Technologies.

SolutionMap Insider members can click here to read about Zycus in our latest report.

In each Customer Insights report, we provide a one-page summary of qualitative — and select rating and quantitative — insights from the SolutionMap peer review process. The Customer Insights summary includes ratings on how well the vendor meets user expectations, three key differentiators for the vendor and a list of quotes about the vendor’s greatest strengths.

Spend Matters’ analysts have been writing personal essays on their favorite SolutionMap personas: Nimble, Deep, Turn-Key, Configurator and CIO Friendly, as well as Optimizer for sourcing providers and Global for CWS vendors. The personas help companies select which solution provider is right for them. This week’s essay is by Xavier Olivera, our lead analyst for P2P, e-procurement and e-invoicing and who runs Spend Matters Mexico/Latin America.

Regarding solutions for any company, I like the pragmatic, the simple and the beautiful, I think there is no place for the “nice to have,” the unnecessary or the ugly. On the other hand, in a changing, multipolar and competitive world such as business, being resilient and possessing the ability to change course when circumstances require it is undoubtedly a necessity, not nice to have.

David Gustin is the chief strategy officer for The Interface Financial Group responsible for digital supply chain finance and is a contributing author to Trade Financing Matters.

Most discussions about early payment solutions focus on buyer-centric models, ones that scale by bringing technology, managed services and perhaps some underwriting to offer supplier finance. This is a big opportunity that top providers have been going after for years, of course, and the potential market is huge. But the flip side of the coin, deferred payment solutions, where sellers are paid early (or based on their standard terms) and small buyers can extend those terms outward to 90 or 180 days, is a less understood market — both in terms of potential, technologies and the type of underwriting to manage losses.

This week’s vendor spotlight in the SolutionMap Customer Insights report focuses on customer reviews of the suite provider Oracle, which we rank in the areas of e-procurement, invoice-to-pay and procure-to-pay.

SolutionMap Insider members can click here to read about Oracle in our latest report.

In each Customer Insights report, we provide a one-page summary of insights from the SolutionMap peer review process. The Customer Insights summary includes ratings on how well the vendor meets user expectations, three key differentiators for the vendor and a list of quotes about the vendor’s greatest strengths.

Artificial intelligence is starting to transform the value proposition of procurement and finance technologies. But it is not just start-ups that are building new capabilities and gaining momentum. Procure-to-pay stalwarts like Basware are making significant investments in the area as well. This Spend Matters PRO brief explores where Basware’s AI investments are appearing in its invoice-to-pay and e-procurement solutions. Part 1 of this series explores Basware’s recent product enhancements, and Part 2 explores 2019 and 2020 roadmap items.

At its recent Basware Connect 2019 customer event in Chicago, Basware brought together both finance and procurement organizations for two days of learning and in-depth product discussions. During the event last month, Basware spent numerous sessions sharing recent product enhancements, as well as highlighting its own product roadmap path forward.

This Spend Matters PRO brief, the second installment in a three-part series, explores Basware’s roadmap for the following products:

— Data, Analytics and Supplier Management
— Networked Sourcing and Procurement
— Networked Accounts Payable and Payments
— IT Integrations and E-Invoice Sending
— Dynamic Discounting and Financing


And our analysts’ give the key takeaways on each of these areas.

In our last Spend Matters PRO post, we introduced you to Promena, an 18-year-old provider based out of Istanbul that is deploying a platform for strategic sourcing, supplier management and e-procurement. Operated under the umbrella of Zer, a procurement BPO firm that itself is a subsidiary of Turkey’s largest industrial conglomerate, Koç Holding, Promena has a solution with a long history of development and some relatively mature functionality despite its lower name recognition in the global procurement technology market. And while its newest modules are still finding their footing amid a rapidly changing sector, the solution overall offers a strong baseline off which Promena could expand it functional footprint.

Part 1 of this brief provided an overview of Promena’s offering and a short selection requirements checklist that outlined the typical company for which Promena might be a good fit. In Part 2, we provide a breakdown of what is comparatively good (and not so good) about the solution, a high-level SWOT analysis, and some final conclusions and takeaways.

Last week, I attended Tradeshift's new “Innovation Summit” series in London. It was a short event, lasting only an afternoon, and obviously one intended to test the waters to the receptiveness of both the format and the location, but an interesting one nonetheless.

From a vision perspective, Tradeshift is almost dead-on in terms of what the platform of the future has to look like, and from a marketing perspective, it makes perfect sense. But when there are still a large number of organizations using Excel and email, and a larger number still who remain on first-generation best-of-breed procurement applications, it's hard to sell a true “Procurement 3.0” solution approach when the majority of the world hasn't even caught on to “Procurement 2.0” solutions.

As our journey to world-class e-invoicing continues in this multi-part Spend Matters Plus research brief, we discuss five additional elements to diagnose the overall scope, capability and coverage of your e-invoicing deployment — and whether or not your solution provider(s) can enable you to get to world-class levels of performance. If you want to catch up on this series, we encourage you to learn about all the components of the first five elements (invoice capture, collaboration/workflow, matching, compliance/validations and mobile enablement) and a broader introduction to the topic in first installment of this series. Finally, we invite Spend Matters practitioner and consulting advisory clients to reach out to us to discuss their existing and planned deployments. E-invoicing is far more complex a solution area to analyze than e-procurement, in large part because solution capabilities and organizational requirements show so much variation compared with each other.

I spend a lot of time in product demos, discussing product features and functionality with the analyst community, digging into technology, and harassing our pre-sales team. I’ve gained a wealth of knowledge about purchase-to-pay software – more than you probably want – but what I’ve also learned is that there are some slippery providers out there. They might deliver a slick demo, but there’s quite a bit of information they’re not telling you, and only one party stands to lose in that situation: you. Keep reading for some examples of how our competitors have offered creative storytelling instead of the truth about what their product can and can’t do.