At Taulia Connect Tuesday, Hackett’s Amy Fong provided an overview of dozens of various Hackett Group metrics and benchmarks spanning procurement, accounts payable, treasury and related areas. Hackett is increasingly delving into certain aspects of technology as well in its survey work, including the usage of supplier networks to support the source-to-pay process.
Tradeshift is becoming an increasingly important procure-to-pay (P2P) vendor to watch for procurement organizations and the broader purchasing and B2B ecosystem. The provider has piqued our curiosity with its foray into e-procurement. It stands out from the crowd, from both an architectural and technology perspective, for two key reasons: the recent launch of Tradeshift Buy, a cloud-based e-procurement solution with an aggressive release and feature roadmap for the remainder of 2015 and 2016, and its ambitious platform-as-a-service model for supplier network connectivity. This multi-part Spend Matters PRO research brief provides an update on Tradeshift’s current and planned e-procurement and expanded P2P capabilities. In the first installment, we begin to look at Tradeshift Buy, the Tradeshift Product Engine and additional Tradeshift tools, including the Tradeshift Shop.
Building on my earlier post introducing supplier networks and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), which was inspired by some of the thinking in Accenture’s paper, Procurement’s Next Frontier – The Future Will Give Rise to an Organization of One, when considering supplier networks of tomorrow, I can think of dozens of future network-based applications that will supplement, augment or replace existing procurement and supplier tech applications.
Here are 6 ideas for what’s possible with future PaaS-driven network applications.
Separate from supplier networks, e-procurement and purchase-to-pay (P2P) systems enable a range of hard dollar cost reduction benefits by reducing off-contract purchases, lowering purchase volume in general, improving operating efficiency, increasing PO throughput per full-time equivalent and bringing greater spend under management and lower contract rates.
These systems do this by supporting a range of capabilities, including supplier onboarding, catalog management, supplier portal, workflow/process management, requisitioning, approval/status, order management/visibility, inventory/asset management and supplier connectivity.
The overlap between e-invoicing solutions and supplier network and P2P capabilities can be significant, especially in the areas of supplier onboarding, connectivity and portal capabilities. Given this, it can be important for procurement and A/P organizations to decide what capabilities of which solution area they want to leverage in case of overlap.
One of the challenges of developing recommendations and shortlists for supplier network providers, as we pointed out in last Friday’s Spend Matters PRO brief titled Supplier Network Forecast: 2014 Market Growth, Analysis and Predictions, is trying to compare individual network and platform providers on an apples-to-apples basis. Indeed, many are beginning to provide application-like (and app) capabilities that can either replace or augment the functional capabilities they connect to on the buyer application side (for instance, e-invoicing, eProcurement, direct procurement systems). In short, it’s often now possible to work with a network provider and achieve the same (or similar) outcomes as working with an application provider, albeit in a way that might not be a direct substitute for a SaaS or CD application (e.g., in the case where the network application serves as a “composite application” that augments an existing buy-side application with a broader data model than what exists in, say, the ERP application). Read on for a list of elements that may affect a particular shortlist, selection, deployment, and usage approach for supplier networks, and our vendor recommendations based on your organization's needs.
Supplier networks help companies leverage existing and planned procurement, accounts payable, and ERP investments by bringing greater spend under management more quickly and in a sustainable manner. This is ideally done through connectivity approaches that enable suppliers to avoid having to duplicate efforts with multiple customers. Supplier networks often address core P2P requirements, including supplier enablement, catalog and content management, and invoice automation and connectivity.
Hubwoo has been aggressively positioning itself as an alternative to the Ariba Business Network to existing SAP customers, and also going after different ecosystems (e.g., Microsoft). Today I’ll share a few of my thoughts on some of Hubwoo’s newer developments and how they stack up in the marketplace (especially compared to Ariba/SAP). Bottom line? Buyer requirements will vary, but competition is always a healthy thing. As such, having Hubwoo around is great for not just the SAP customers who want non-Ariba SAP applications in the cloud, but also for those customers who want to keep SAP/Ariba honest, focused on value, and open.
For suppliers, there could be many benefits of such a model as well. These might include integrated working capital tools that cross customer and network bounds (imagine a combination of Taulia, which incidentally should be on the immediate shopping list for SAP/Ariba now, with built-in financing partners pre-integrated into the network and pre-approved, low-APR rates based on the buying organization’s credit rating). In addition, supplier-focused network capability might include the ability to leverage the shared infrastructure to develop and deliver enhanced solutions including plumbing for vendor managed inventory (VMI), just-in-time (JIT), leveraged buying/buying aggregation, hedging/commodity management and other capabilities.