This week’s SolutionMap Customer Insights report focuses on customer reviews for Vroozi, a provider of spend management, marketplace and invoicing automation solutions. The applicable SolutionMap category for this report is in E-Procurement, Invoice-to-Pay and Procure-to-Pay. SolutionMap Insider members can read about Vroozi in our latest report.
In each Customer Insights report, we provide a one-page summary of details from the SolutionMap peer review process. It includes ratings on how well the vendor meets its customers' expectations, three key differentiators for the vendor and a list of quotes from customers about the vendor’s greatest strengths.
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.
Today, most sourcing teams ask for quotes by emailing one spreadsheet to many suppliers and re-assembling the resulting chaos in a pivot table. Some technologies have helped digitize the process, but the basic information included remains the same. Companies ask for quotes, and suppliers send what they believe to be their best initial offer.
To find out more about how technology is improving supplier negotiations, we talked to Edmund Zagorin, the CEO of Bid Ops, a Spend Matters Future 5 award-winning company that offers a cloud-based sourcing enablement tool. Bid Ops describes its platform as the first AI solution for automating sourcing negotiations using adaptive target pricing, or “Willingness to Discount” formula, as they call it. Find out more in this Q&A.
That sums up the BMW supply chain mission statement, said Doug Markle, the CEO of Allocation North America, in a webinar with BMW about how the automaker gets the most out of its manufacturing process.
BMW’s high standards and its technology combine to meet its drive for excellence. To create a competitive advantage, a manufacturer or business with complex operations must ensure a controlled, digitized management process across the entire production lifecycle. And BMW stated that it organizes all of its sourcing events by using Allocation’s ASTRAS software solution.
In Part 1 of this series on technology for direct procurement, research showed a need for manufacturers to upgrade their risky manual processes and digitally transform how they source parts, collaborate with suppliers, manage the lifecycle of parts and materials, and how they can add visibility and value across the whole business. Manufacturers can do that by having one technology platform that manages the entire manufacturing process — from requisition through end-of-life.
Two companies that have made that upgrade are BMW and INEOS Automotive, another manufacturer that participated in the webinar hosted by MetalMiner, a sister site of ours. Both automakers have deployed ASTRAS, which enables end-to-end management of the complex supply chain and parts lifecycle. And they’re having success.
This week’s SolutionMap Customer Insights report focuses on customer reviews for Bonfire, a cloud-based provider of sourcing whose offering is known for its ease of use.
The applicable SolutionMap category for this report is in Sourcing. SolutionMap Insider members can read about Bonfire in our latest report.
In each Customer Insights report, we provide a one-page summary of details from the SolutionMap peer review process. It includes ratings on how well the vendor meets its customers' expectations, three key differentiators for the vendor and a list of quotes from customers about the vendor’s greatest strengths.
Managing supply chain risk is an important area of focus for companies to consider when working with suppliers and contractors at various levels of business. A recent study from the business-qualifying firm Avetta, “The Importance of Assessing Supplier Financial Stability,” evaluates an array of research on the issues and pinpoints the many risks that companies face when choosing and working with contractors and vendors.
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: ArcelorMittal closures; oil prices; nickel deficit falls; section 232 tariffs
“Jaggaer has a wealth of information,” said new Jaggaer CEO Jim Bureau. “Over the past 25 years, we’ve gathered more and more data to build intelligence upon, and it’s incumbent upon us to be able to tap into that information in a meaningful way so that we securely provide appropriate instructions to our customers to enable them to be proactive with it.”
In a two-part Q&A with Spend Matters Founder Jason Busch, Bureau outlined the suite provider’s plans after three big changes this year: all of its solutions are now on a single platform called Jaggaer One, it got a new owner over the summer and the change in leadership a few weeks ago that elevated Bureau.
Today, Bureau discusses Jaggaer’s partner network and looks further into the company’s future to discuss what its products will look like and what the company hopes to accomplish.
AP automation provider Medius today announced that it is buying Wax Digital, the UK-based suite provider of source-to-pay capabilities.
Medius, which is based in Sweden, sees the deal as a chance to allow its "current and future customers to generate increased automation, visibility and control across the entire purchasing process.”
Read more about the deal and how it reshapes the procurement technology market.
The global suite provider Jaggaer has been undergoing a lot of changes this year — converging its solutions on a single platform called Jaggaer One, getting a new owner this summer and seeing a change in leadership a few weeks ago.
To learn more about these changes, Spend Matters Founder Jason Busch talked with Jaggaer’s new CEO, Jim Bureau, who has been with the company a little over two years and most recently was executive vice president.
If you’re at a company that’s looking for more insight into its spend, you may be considering a procure-to-pay solution or you may just need to go with a spend analytics tool.
So, how does a business decide between the two?
P2P is often a robust system that a business considers when it needs to upgrade its processes as well as its technology. It’s often deployed when legacy systems need replacing or old workflows take too much time and effort from your staff.
A company choosing this option should be ready for a long implementation process that has costs beyond the hefty price of the system itself. Implementation, change management and staff training take time and money. And hidden costs can include poor user adoption of the system, which cuts into the return on investment if your personnel don’t use the system you just bought.
A spend analytics solution may be a better fit for established businesses that already have serviceable technology and sound workflows. Those companies may just need a system that offers more insight into the data they already have. That’s when you’d look for a best-of-breed spend analytics solution.
Last week, Spend Matters Europe did a great job of summarizing the Coupa Inspire event in London, including a look at the biggest items that Coupa was pushing on its product agenda.
This was great, but the best product-related announcements weren't in the keynotes, and they barely even got more than a mention in the breakout sessions.
So today, we're going to focus on two developments — connectivity and analytics encapsulation — because these innovations can totally change the game in business spend management and should not be overlooked!
