Source-to-Contract Solutions
An In-Depth Guide
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What are Source-to-Contract solutions?
Source-to-contract (S2C) solutions suites are for automating upstream procurement processes, which include spend/supply analytics, sourcing (sourcing strategy and e-sourcing execution), buy-side contract management and supplier management. In other words, S2C suites automate non-transactional procurement processes that create the majority of procurement value. S2C is about managing and increasing spend under management (SUM) to broaden a company’s ability to deliver value. The following graphic illustrates where these suites operate in the source-to-pay (S2P) cycle.
S2C platforms are layered on top of ERP systems so that a singular strategic technology platform helps maximize commercial value before deploying the execution to procure-to-pay (P2P) execution systems.
An S2C solution offers technology that supports each of the categories outlined above and may also support adjacent areas, such as Risk Management or Carbon Emissions.
For more information on what each of these specific subsets are, please refer to the relevant in-depth guides:
As well as adjacent covered areas:
- Risk Management
- Vendor Management Services
What kinds of organizations should consider a Source-to-Contract solution
An S2C solution can benefit a wide range of organizations, but it is particularly advantageous for those experiencing challenges in their upstream, spend under management procurement processes. Here are some types of organizations that should strongly consider an S2C solution:
- Large enterprises with multiple locations and diverse suppliers: Managing a vast supplier network, multiple internal stakeholders and transactions and activities can be overwhelming without automation and without breaking silos.
- Organizations seeking enhanced process maturity: Organizations aiming to kickstart continuous process improvement and overall procurement maturity through the adoption of technology would find value in S2C integrations.
- Companies with high procurement spend: Automating the sourcing, CLM and supplier management processes can lead to significant cost savings through improved efficiency, reduced errors and optimized supplier relationships.
- Companies in highly regulated industries: An S2C solution can help ensure compliance with regulations and reduce the risk of fraud, as it ties together contacts, spend and supplier management.
- Businesses seeking to optimize procurement strategies: Advanced analytics and reporting features in S2C solutions can provide valuable insights into spending patterns and opportunities in your supply chain.
- Teams drowning in manual tasks: A digital approach to S2C can bring efficiencies through collaboration.
Specific Industry Examples
- Manufacturing: Managing complex supply chains, controlling costs and ensuring quality.
- Healthcare: Compliance with regulations, managing a variety of suppliers and controlling costs.
- Retail: Fast-paced environments with fluctuating demand and numerous suppliers benefit from streamlined and end-to-end processes.
- Government agencies: Complex procurement processes, compliance requirements and budgetary constraints make S2C a valuable tool.
How technology supports S2C – Top 4 capabilities
These ‘Top 4’ critical digital capabilities stem from the Spend Matters TechMatch workbench — derived from a larger number of requirements scored in the SolutionMap solution benchmark.
The Top 4 capabilities are the highest-weighted critical capabilities that are central to the displayed solution market benchmark. They have been developed by the Spend Matters analyst team and refined by procurement users in tech-selection projects using our market-proven SolutionMap benchmarking dataset and associated TechMatch decision-making tool.
1. Analytics
The ability to provide a single view into all historic, current and planned supplier spending in order to improve that spending through better sourcing, compliance and demand management.
On average, buyers should expect a vendor to include out-of-the-box report builders (drag-and-drop models), reporting dashboards and descriptive reports of all S2C metrics. Top performers have deeper analytics capabilities that support the identification of opportunities, such as market intelligence through community data and AI/ML-enabled actionable analytics.
Some of the top performers have actionable analytics for benchmarks, process KPIs and user KPIs, as well as predictive and prescriptive analysis to guide users during their S2C activities, achieving a greater contribution from all stakeholders and generating greater value for the business.
2. Contract Lifecycle Management
The ability to automate the authoring, negotiation, execution, implementation, monitoring and renewal of B2B contracts (with an emphasis on supplier contracts).
Contract lifecycle management (CLM) functions as the final concrete step (not including regular/ongoing supplier management) of the S2C process. With CLM, organizations increase the speed and quality of the contract drafting, negotiating and ongoing repository-based management processes.
Within S2C, CLM is especially useful when it is fully integrated. For example, a sourcing event can automatically generate the creation of a new contract within the platform. Top solutions for CLM will go beyond cross-functional/module collaboration and offer deep configurability, guided authoring, suggested clauses, clause-level risk scores and more.
3. Sourcing
Solutions and supporting content and services for managing sourcing strategies (including category strategy), execution (e.g., RFx management and e-auctions) and portfolio/performance management.
Average performing vendors enable customers to manage moderately complex sourcing events that partially leverage the other modules of the suite (SxM and CLM). Top performers can better cross-fertilize processes, bringing more data into the sourcing process to enhance key steps like supplier invitations and bid analysis/evaluation by providing users with a bigger picture and the means to perform more complex scenarios. They also have more capabilities to bring outside-in intelligence, enhancing strategizing and execution.
Some leading performers use AI to automate the sourcing process and augment sourcing professionals with recommendations on when to launch events and what to do when managing an event.
4. SxM
Supplier-centered applications that not only orchestrate user experiences between suppliers and employees across S2P but also augment sourcing/contracting and P2P solutions with capabilities to optimize supplier-related information, performance, relationship, quality, risk and compliance management.
The average provider supports customers in managing the complete supplier lifecycle and feeds other modules and systems with supplier-related information. The differences between average and leading providers reside in the breadth and depth of managed and verified information and configuration capabilities.
Some leading providers help customers tackle data quality issues by leveraging various capabilities (network, community, AI/ML, etc.) and ensuring that every supplier interaction managed in the suite is the occasion to review/update data. These leading solutions also foster bi-directional collaboration.
Why selecting the right S2C solution can be difficult
Every procurement organization needs an S2P digital strategy, but choosing between a full-footprint S2P suite, a combination of S2C and a P2P suites or best-of-breed vendors can be difficult.
Roadblocks include:
- The suite vs best-of-breed debate: There are numerous benefits and tradeoffs to consider when choosing between S2C mini-suites, large S2P suites, niche solutions and platform-based approaches. This lengthy, in-depth process can lead to cross-functional friction, dissatisfaction and delay/cost.
- Blueprinting needs: Many companies find themselves stuck in a cycle of ‘throwing apps at the problem’ without first fully understanding and blueprinting their needs. This lack of digital procurement strategy should be addressed before any tech selections, which should consider not only platform capabilities but also search for best-in-class architecture.
- Objective council: It can be difficult to find objective technology information in the market, especially from consultants that have biased vendor-specific S2C/S2P implementations practices or have poor intelligence on the broader market (unless they license TechMatch from Spend Matters).
How Spend Matters can help you select Source-to-Contract technology
Spend Matters specializes in procurement technology diligence. In addition to projects and advisory, Spend Matters offers Insider, the only membership community and technology comparison tool of its kind: access to Spend Matters SolutionMap vendor rankings dataset combined with independent, zero pay-to-play, brutally honest coverage of solution providers, market developments and trends affecting procurement, finance and supply chain.
We can help you find a solution that can:
- Establish the core digital infrastructure for procurement beyond process silos of sourcing, contracting and supplier management, but also stakeholder/demand, performance/value and project/program management, opportunity/risk analytics, market intelligence integration and other areas.
- Support robust category management that spans, segments and optimizes all upstream processes (beyond category strategy formulation and sourcing event design), ‘guided’ category management, community intelligence, etc.
- Support complex, multi-organization and multi-system environments. In other words, find a solution that fits into any IT landscape.
- Flexibly deploy suites modularly that can support scalability and embrace whatever entities or processes needed/support changes in processes and entities over time.
Discover Source-to-Contract vendors
These are the vendors we are covering today (or very soon). Visit their vendor directory pages on Spend Matters for a quick vendor overview, demographic information and relevant articles, including vendor analyses.
| Solution Provider | What it offers |
|---|---|
| Aavenir | Aavenir offers contract management, sourcing and AP automation. It has deep out-of-the-box integrations with ServiceNow, Workday and Salesforce, among others. It also has a plug-in to Microsoft Word and Docusign. Sourcing management and contract management are sold as standalone products. |
| Corcentric | Corcentric Platform is a comprehensive S2P offering, born out of Corcentric’s various acquisitions over the past decade (Source One Management Services in 2018; Netsend in 2019; Determine, Inc. in 2019 and Vendorin B2B Payments provider in 2020). The company also offers advisory and managed services. |
| Coupa | Coupa is an expansive S2P offering, including both core modules (S2P, S2C, P2P, AP automation) and many adjacent ones, such as supply chain design, treasury management and payments. It is well known for using its community-based intelligence to generate insights. It also sells a standalone S2C solution. |
| ebidtopay | ebidtopay is a European family-owned suite that typically serves the mid-market. It’s ‘smart!’ modules cover S2C, P2P, supplier relationship management and supply chain management, as well as products focused on strategy and innovation. Its standalone S2C product is called ‘Smart! source-to-contract.’ |
| eFlow by Efficio | eFlow is part of Efficio’s blended value proposition that includes services and technology. It is not sold as a standalone product (i.e., to use it you must also use Efficio’s services). It offers analytics and initiative management, supplier management, sourcing, contract management and knowledge management. |
| GEP | GEP offers three S2P solutions that work together. GEP SMART is a S2P suite application; GEP NEXXE is a SCM application; GEP Green is a sustainability application. It is also a well known service provider. Modules can be mixed and matched to use a specific capability, S2C or full S2P. |
| ISPnext | ISPnext is an S2P solution that sells individual modules for supplier management, sourcing, contract management, procurement, AP automation and spend analysis. Most of its customers are mid or mid+ organizations that have their HQ in the Benelux. |
| Kissflow | Kissflow offers modules that cover strategic sourcing, P2P, supplier management, contract management, inventory management, invoice automation, spend analytics and integrations. It typically serves SME companies. |
| Ivalua | Ivalua is a global solution with customers in over 75 countries and a strong partner network. Its modules cover the S2P process (including for direct materials management), and it offers some supplemental offerings, such as inventory management. |
| Jaggaer | Since beginning in 1995 under the name of SciQuest, Jaggaer has acquired several other companies that now are part of the offering under the Jaggaer ONE banner, which launched in 2019. In addition to covering the S2P process, Jaggaer offers solutions for supply chain collaboration and payments. |
| Medius | Medius is a modular S2P suite that covers the mid-market in Europe. Customers mainly use it for indirect spend and to benefit from suite-level integrations. Its focus is on P2P; S2C capabilities exist in support of e-procurement and AP automation. |
| Mercanis | Mercanis offers a highly configurable S2C suite and is best suited for European organizations operating in manufacturing, consumer, construction or energy industries that have $200 million or more in revenue and aim to improve supplier management and sourcing while being able to configure processes and grow over time. |
| MeRLIN | MeRLIN began as a strategic sourcing solution born from the RheinBrücke Group. Since launching in 2021, it has also added on contract management, supplier relationship management, category management, analytics, German supply chain due diligence and e-procurement. |
| Oboloo | Companies use oboloo for e-sourcing, supplier management, contract management and savings management. It was built to be user-friendly and ideal for SMEs. |
| OneMarket | OneMarket by LogicSouce offers solutions that cover P2P, analytics, sourcing, and contracts. It also offers a project management capability called Portfolio. |
| Onventis | Since its first release in 2002, Onventis has been incrementally building and expanding its S2P system. Over the last few years, it has worked to close several gaps by acquiring Spendency for spend analytics, adding native CLM capabilities and third-party risk data providers. Today, it covers the entire S2P process. |
| Oracle | While arguably best known for its ERP, Oracle also offers many other applications, including a Procurement Cloud that covers the S2P process. Other applications include a supply chain and manufacturing solution, human capital management and product lifecycle management. |
| Proactis | The creation of Proactis goes back to 1996 when the company Get Real Systems was founded in the UK. The company changed its name to Proactis in 2003. It offers an S2P suite that includes a marketplace/supplier network, In addition to buy-side capabilities and revenue, Proactis has an offering dedicated to suppliers wishing to capture new business opportunities. |
| Raindrop | Raindrop is a flexible and easy-to-use S2P tool designed for small to medium-sized enterprises. Today it offers products that cover supplier management, sourcing, contract management, analytics and payables. It also offers a digital signature platform called RainSign. |
| SAP Ariba | Since its initial founding as Ariba in 1996, SAP Ariba has continued to undergo significant development, and the solution’s overall SAP Ariba roadmap increasingly intersects with those of other SAP products. Today, it covers the full S2P lifecycle. For S2C, sourcing and contracts and supplier management are sold as standalone products. |
| Synertrade | Synertrade offers three solutions: supplier management, P2P and S2C. Its S2C product offering covers spend analytics, product management, e-sourcing, contract lifecycle management and S2C intelligence. |
| Unit4 (Scanmarket) | Unit4 acquired Scanmarket in 2022. Scanmarket was a Denmark-based provider of cloud-based S2C capability founded in 1999. Today, Unit4 offers solutions for ERP, human capital management, talent management, financial planning and analysis, financial management and accounting and, of course, S2C. |
| Zapro AI | In addition to covering the S2P cycle, Zapro AI also offers solutions for vendor management and inventory management. It offers standalone products for sourcing, contract management, vendor management and spend analytics that can make up the S2C lifecycle. |
| Zycus | Zycus is an S2P provider that offers P2P and S2C platforms, as well as applications for intake management, risk management and ESG management. |
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