The election of Donald Trump will undoubtedly have an unexpected impact on the domestic and international procurement, supply chain and trade communities. Perhaps the even bigger surprise will be in how much of the grassroots rhetoric from the campaign actually becomes reality in 2017 when President-elect Trump takes office. Reversing previous executive orders and issuing…

As a whole, source-to-pay suite solutions serve as a common “hub” for all procurement-related activity. These S2P suites are particularly important with respect to the success of ESG policies via the solutions’ extensive capabilities for supplier profiles, supplier networks, KPI tracking/benchmarking, sourcing optimization, bill of materials management and API frameworks for third-party data integrations, among…

This Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis provides an overview of Raindrop and its source-to-contract solution for spend planning, sourcing, supplier management, contract management and payables management. Raindrop’s roadmap plan is to become a source-to-pay provider. The continued digitization of the procurement function has transformed the way source-to-pay solutions position themselves. Now more than just app…

In Spend Matters’ last two PRO articles in this series, we talked about how spend analysis today is a bit like George Costanza in Seinfeld’s world. He’s something you have to laugh at, not with, when he tells us we're buying computer mice, not furry lab mice, even when we are a global Pet Emporium…

The contract lifecycle management (CLM) space is exceptional because best-of-breed vendors definitively define what leading functionality is. Whereas, in other areas, suite players often perform at parity or stronger than standalone vendors — and, in the case of sourcing optimization especially, outperform the market. In CLM, the standalone vendors are the ones that set the…

In the previous installment of the introduction into the direct materials sourcing area (which itself is part of a broader direct procurement landscape), the focus was on direct spend analytics and design collaboration & early supplier involvement/innovation. In this Spend Matters PRO installment, the focus will shift toward the next five areas, which move from…

SirionLabs is a contract lifecycle management (CLM) vendor with solutions at the forefront of the contract management space. While originally positioned as a supplier performance […]

Supplyframe is a very interesting provider that positions itself as a full-suite supply chain and source-to-pay solution in the high-tech electronics industry. It is one of the few providers to provide both buy-side and sell-side solutions — and do so in a way that allows it to mine, and provide, relative intelligence to each side.…

Supplyframe is a provider that resists easy classification. It overlaps several areas in the traditional source-to-pay process, yet it is also a large "niche" player that positions itself as a full-suite supply chain and S2P solution for the high-tech electronics industry. This is because Supplyframe serves not only manufacturers but also suppliers and their distributors.…

The introduction to this Spend Matters PRO series focused on digitizing direct materials procurement and broke the overall landscape down into four main areas. This follow-up installment focuses primarily on eight key digital capabilities for direct materials sourcing. Although the “upstream” portion of the S2P transcends sourcing and includes supplier relationship management, the focus of…

我们最喜欢的一个超级碗的广告year was the Jason Alexander “hoodie” — a totally hilarious plug for Tide. Any true “Seinfeld” fan knows that you’re usually laughing at George Costanza, not with him, but somehow you feel sorry for the guy, at least part of the time, which is precisely why this…

Spend on services by US-based organizations is estimated to be over $10 trillion. Contingent workforce (the engagement of temp workers and individual contractors) represents only a small fraction of total services spend. External spend in the other complex services categories (e.g., marketing, facilities management, IT, BPO, etc.) is vast, and it is complicated. Numerous problems…

The term “direct procurement,” like the term “procurement” itself, means different things to different organizations. Some view “direct” only as direct materials while others include any supply chain-related spending (e.g., energy, tooling and any allocable spend that will flow to cost of goods sold, or COGS) and services such as contract manufacturing or third-party logistics.…

This Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis provides an overview of Ravacan and its solution covering direct materials and asset collaboration management. The notion that spreadsheets are archaic tools dying to be replaced by SaaS solutions is somewhat of a cliché in the enterprise software world. Yet the adoption of cloud-based alternatives for various business processes…

This Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis provides an overview of ChAI and its solution for commodity price forecasting. Hedge funds and commodities traders are no strangers to volatility. Investors are in the business of predicting price movements and designing hedging strategies to manage risk. And as technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have…