Business Process Outsourcing, Change Management, Managed Services, Procurement Strategy & Planning, Solution Providers, Technology

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In Part 1 of the Spend Matters PRO series “Procurement Services Market Landscape Report and Directory,” we started with the chief procurement officer (CPO) essentially being the “CEO” of a spend/supply management services business. This business includes seven major service areas:

1. Strategy and operating model design and transformation led by the CPO but guided by the business. It determines which set of services are most needed by the business, the use cases for those services (e.g., FP&A, S&OP, M&A, customer-led digital transformation, “one company” initiatives, resiliency improvement, ESG efforts, NPDI support, ERP implementations, etc.), the assessment of the ability to support and even influence those business strategies, and then a target operating model and portfolio of programs/projects (including capability improvement projects surrounding talent, digital, or certain processes or spend/supplier categories).
2. Knowledge-based category management services for major spend categories and associated stakeholders in order to organize both around supply markets but also to align tightly with critical functional partners that are also supporting business strategies and driving their own services and strategies.
3. Operational services for category/‘super-category’ execution that align to the strategic category management services and other corporate requirements (e.g., risk management), including sourcing execution, supplier relationship management and contract/commercial management.
4. Transactional services (e.g., P2P) supporting the above requirements with a focus on moving toward low/no-touch guided processing, an intuitive self-service UX, and fail-safed fraud/compliance monitoring.
5. Joint services with functional partners in departments like finance, IT, risk, HR, legal, operations, etc. rather than just helping them manage their spend and suppliers better.
6. Agile product and service (internal/external) development working closely with IT (and broader “digital” strategy/transformation groups) and the service provider ecosystem that your company has built up, whether methodically or ad hoc, for new strategic processes and programs being invented on the fly.
7. Enablement services delivered through a center of excellence (CoE) within procurement or at the enterprise level — e.g., via a global business services (GBS) model.

It is hard to overstate both the importance and the complexity of these services in industries where supply chains and suppliers are so volatile and complex right now, and the fact that there are so many internal stakeholders and external technology/service suppliers that have their own ideas of how they plan to run their own services and ecosystems.

There is massive complexity here, but also massive opportunity. It’s a chance for CPOs to build out their services business on what they really need: a next-generation Procurement-as-a-Service Digital Platform (which doesn’t really exist yet) in the broadest sense — i.e., the ability to mix and match processes like Business-Process-as-asService), enabled by highly modular SaaS, built on emerging application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaaS infrastructure such as low/no-code tools), iPaas for integration, DaaS for outside-in data/intelligence flows and underlying infrastructure.

To build this out, CPOs are going to need a lot of help from the procurement “XaaS” ecosystem, even though that ecosystem is highly in flux. And this problem is an even bigger issue for the services providers, which are either supporting pieces of this puzzle or are tasked with assembling this for their large, complex clients.

To do so, CPOs will need to understand their current/future options and then determine the best fit strategy for them.

Previously, we identified a basic segmentation model for the procurement XaaS market that starts with demand segmentation and the “CPO as service provider” (and strategic value partner and ecosystem builder … there should be no conflict with this). The basic approach is to segment out your processes/services by process scope (e.g., upstream source-to-contract vs. downstream procure-to-pay) and by spend category (e.g., indirect vs. direct) to create your “market basket for procurement services” (individually and collectively) and then consider your supply-side service provider options. The more granular that you break this up, the more flexibility you have with best-of-breed options, but also the greater number of integration points and points of failure. This is only getting made more complicated with agile development processes that are quick to roll out new bite-size apps that might bite you back if you’re not planning for a cohesive architecture (e.g., composite data models and master data harmonization and synchronization).

To help take the services landscape basket out to the market (which is full of different vendors, we created a basic segmentation framework on two dimensions that generally encapsulates the market:

• Transform (consulting) vs. Operate/Enable (BPO&MSP)
• Strategy&Operations vs. Digital (which is both “I” and “T” in IT)

For No. 1 above, you may strategically partner with a large BPO that becomes a large virtual extension of your own organization and that helps craft an ecosystem for/with you built on next-generation digital platforms for intelligent automation and analytics (and integrating it to a fragmented flotilla of ERP and S2P applications that your business has built up over over the years) — even if you have a somewhat reduced menu of choices that your provider supports well. You are driving the strategy and services, and you are excellent at managing a large complex services relationship with this partner that has become your “easy button.” On the flipside, your own IT organization may be excellent, but you need third-party transformation services not wedded to any ecosystem, and you want the best thinking, best business models and best emerging practices — and you’ll figure out how to stitch it all together.

For No. 2 above, you may want to engage a single trusted advisor that knows your organization and can help you both create the strategy and roll up some sleeves to help you implement it, all the way through implementation of standardized S2P application suites. Conversely, you may want the absolute best objective thinking on strategy without any preconceived notions or subtle bias toward implementing technology strategies and solutions (and associated tech-vendor practices).

Once you’ve identified your general strategy, then you can home in on the best-fit service providers to engage to start building out your new ecosystem. To help in this effort, we organized our analysis on these dimensions so that we can try to best help match procurement service supply in the ecosystem to procurement service demand by procurement organizations. Also, since we serve the entire procurement provider ecosystem, we are developing this intelligence to help the supply side of the equation to help providers identify partners that they can engage operationally or “strategically” to help make sure that their part of the ecosystem is appropriately broad and/or deep.

Given this context, here’s what we did and what we learned …

架构< / >、< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/category/solution-providers/ " rel = "类别标签”>解决方案提供商< / >,< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/category/supplier-management-compass/ " rel = "类别标签”>供应商管理< / >,< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/category/technology/ " rel = "类别标签”>技术< / > < / p > < p >标签:PRO

BVA的路线图计划是成为供应商管理人员的标准供应链弹性/合规解决方案。

As a solution for supplier management (SXM) that also offers considerable contract management depth, London-based BVA seeks to address several common problems for its customers. For example, it wants to resolve the frustration surrounding the common need for providing evidence of strong supplier governance to auditors (whether internal or external).

Like many other technology providers, BVA is focused on centralization. It aims to allow vendor managers to access contracts, analytics and supplier data all in one platform.

From a contractual standpoint, BVA wants to help clients stay ahead of contract end dates and obligations while fully understanding what the contracts entail (e.g., to what degree is a client’s supplier management policy even reflected in a given contract?).

Its risk management capabilities leverage its analytics — because BVA also wants to collect supplier performance data, automatically build scorecards, analyze survey data and measure ROI of new projects so the user does not have to manually hunt for and interpret data.

Finally, BVA wants to help clients with sustainability, which is also included in its risk management offering.

BVA describes itself as a contract-based vendor management tool for compliance enforcement policy-driven vendor ops. In the long run, it hopes to continue its centralization process and act as a hub for vendor managers tackling all types of third-party management processes. For most standalone vendors, depth in areas outside of the vendor’s core focus is typically weak. BVA, however, offers impressive CLM and risk management components to complement its core SXM focus, and while it still has plenty of room for improvements, its visions of serving as a centralized vendor manager platform are understandable.

This Vendor Analysis also explores the concept behind BVA; the platform, application and supporting services that BVA delivers; a verified customer reference analysis; a list of BVA’s competitors; tech selection tips; and key analyst takeaways.

Here’s why BVA matters:

• To the market — BVA offers supplier management, contract management, risk management, performance management, relationship management, compliance management, innovation management and sustainability/ESG management modules.
• To customers — BVA customers work in financial, automotive, public sector and many more industries. They work primarily in the UK and Northern Europe, but BVA plans to expand to the US in 2022. The customers enjoy BVA’s user interface, breadth of modules and strategic alignment with their own long-term growth goals.
• To potential buyers — BVA offers two dimensions of scale: one per module, another per vendor bloc. Customers can add unlimited users and are given up to 5 TB of data storage.

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Business Process Outsourcing, Change Management, Managed Services, Procurement Strategy & Planning, Solution Providers, Technology

Tags: PRO

Spend Matters today begins a PRO series meant to shed light on an often-overlooked part of digital procurement transformations — namely the services needed to formulate and execute the actual transformation strategy itself!

Our series — “Procurement Services Market Landscape Report and Directory” — will profile 34 vendors in six industry categories. Spend Matters analysts gave the rationale for this research as helping “the Global 2000 make more holistic solution decisions that are increasingly incorporating a diverse set of strategy, operations, technology and BPO partners.”

But first let’s consider the current state of procurement.

Most procurement organizations are pushing hard to improve their stakeholder alignment and business impact. They are trying to extricate themselves from low-value activities in order to expand their portfolio of spend/supply services and capture more value from the supply ecosystem, where nearly everything is now available as a service (i.e., “XaaS”).

That’s good news because procurement needs help transforming its diverse “service portfolio,” which is simply all the things that it does to reduce spend, improve supplier value, impact innovation and top-line growth, improve supply chain resiliency, demonstrate environmental/social leadership, and other objectives.

However, buyers must approach the procurement services market with a holistic mindset, a disciplined approach and an understanding of the trade-offs involved with different service strategies as well as service provider types.

In this initial report that focuses on the end-to-end procurement services market rather than just the business process outsourcing (BPO) market or the procurement consulting market, we will focus on procurement itself as a service provider to the business before turning the lens to the vendors in the supply market.

The supply market dynamics are not just driven by legacy service provider segments, but also the disruptive effect of digital on these segments and service providers such that they can cross over more easily into other segments directly or via partnerships.

The procurement services market is evolving into an ecosystem that can be harvested for value if buyers know what to look for. As such, in this series, we analyzed nearly three dozen representative procurement service providers in the market to learn from them who they are, the value they deliver and their capabilities across more than two dozen individual competencies. We also investigate how they go to market in these evolving service segments and how evolving digital capabilities are helping them add new value streams beyond traditional ones.

See some background on the initial 34 providers here in the provider directory that we’ve created just for this research. We’ll add detailed provider profiles to the directory when we discuss the respective market segment that the providers serve.

These are the six provider categories, shown with an explanation of the group’s value propositions:

• Source-to-pay technology specialists — These purpose-built consultancies will help rapidly and effectively implement and optimize the leading S2P applications and suites — and some other tools as well.
• Global consultancies — These firms, including the Big 5 firms, have worldwide reach and support across a spectrum of services, even beyond S2P.
• Strategy consultancies — The C-suite at buyer organizations are undoubtedly using one of these firms, and most of these consultancies are developing formidable capabilities.
• Regional firms — Use these consultants for local presence, cultural fit and specialization (and maybe even lower rates).
• Global BPOs — Clients of these firms get one-stop shopping for large-scale digital transformation and global operations.
• MSPs — These firms occupy the “long tail” of the market and offer niche enablement by category, process, resource, benefit, commercial model, etc.

Now, let’s get into the deeper details about the services that procurement delivers to its stakeholders across a business, challenges that procurement faces and how to engage with the types of service providers that we’re profiling in the directory.

应付账款， Featured SolutionMap Article， Procurement Systems &， Solution Providers， Technology

< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/tag/pro/ " rel = "标签" > < / >,< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/tag/map_apauto/ " rel = "标签" > SolutionMap美联社自动化溢价< / >,< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/tag/allmaps/ " rel = "标签" > SolutionMap溢价< / > < / p > Tipalti和中音部是两个AP自动化供应商,现在是一个热门趋势的一部分。

Companies’ interest in automating and streamlining their accounts payable and payment processes has accelerated considerably during the Covid pandemic. This has led investors to focus on B2B areas related to these processes, especially payments, and put their money behind growing players in the sector. AP automation vendors have raised considerable sums for market expansion and development over the last several years, with little sign of a slowdown.

Tipalti and Medius, given their value proposition in AP automation and payments processing, have been the beneficiaries of this interest from investors and customers alike. Tipalti has raised $150 million at a $2 billion valuation via a venture-led route, while Medius has grown and expanded as a portfolio company of Marlin Equity partners, including a 2019 merger with Wax Digital that brought Medius into the source-to-pay category.

But beyond financial backing and momentum, what differentiates these two AP automation providers, and how can procurement and finance organizations determine which vendor is the best fit to their unique business requirements?

In this Spend Matters PRO/SolutionMap Insider head-to-head analysis, we will use the providers’ participation in SolutionMap — our rigorous ranking system that scores hundreds of technology capabilities and evaluates customer feedback on more than 70 vendors — to compare Medius and Tipalti. We also will add analysis about their differences so that any company evaluating them for a short list can make an informed decision.

Join us in this unfiltered SolutionMap analysis from our Spring 2021 data update.

Not yet a PRO or SolutionMap Insider member? Click for more info.

 Spend Matters’ head-to-head columns share the insights of each fall and spring SolutionMap update. Subscribers to our PRO analyst content and SolutionMap Insider content can read the head-to-head columns, which provide comparative cuts of SolutionMap benchmark data for two solutions. For each column, we provide comparisons against the benchmarks, comparative scoring of vendors across dozens of functional requirements, and our analysts’ take on how each solution holds up in the competitive ring.

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， ， Supplier Collaboration

< a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/tag/pro/ " rel = "标签" > PRO < / > < / p > < a href = " //www.szcsmm.com/pro/ " >花箴重要内容< / >带给你最深最广的各种各样的分析师覆盖采购供应商的技术空间,这每月的帖子将回顾为什么9月供应商和覆盖问题是很重要的。

Each month, our analyst team provides vendor-specific profiles and overviews. Using our 333manbetx benchmark data from 75 solutions, we also do comparative analyses of vendors against each other in our head-to-head columns, or we highlight a vendor versus the SolutionMap average scores in a “What Makes It Great” post. Also, our analyst coverage explores the latest thought-leadership topics about the sector.

In this September roundup, we review our coverage of eight vendors (Finexio, Pixid, GreenLight, Archlet, SpendHQ, Symfact, MineralTree, AvidXchange), as well as discuss our latest insights on how to drive supplier-led innovation.

(Read more...)

， Supplier Management， Technology

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Analytics， Featured SolutionMap Article， Procurement Systems &， Solution Providers， Technology

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它披露了大量信息，表明该公司有意通过首次公开募股(ipo)成为一家上市公司。虽然我们可能会开玩笑说IPO太过时了，但对于那些可以选择IPO或SPAC的公司来说，IPO通常仍是首选路线。如果你能让高盛(Goldman Sachs)和摩根大通(JP Morgan)像AvidXchange一样担任联合账簿管理人(即首席银行家)，那么IPO交易还有什么理由不受欢迎呢?

For those that have been around corporate finance in the B2B tech industry for some time, getting Goldman and JP Morgan together is a giant feather in the cap. And getting such a list of additional bankers (in addition to the two giants) to support the transaction is also quite an accomplishment, given so many are making gobs of money on highly lucrative M&A activities at the moment and have serious capacity constraints.

But why is there so much interest in AvidXchange?

This Spend Matters PRO piece provides an overview of some of the salient points from the S-1 document along with our interpretation of the numbers and statements.

But it starts by providing background on AvidXchange, including a high level summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the provider relative to the competition based on our AP Automation SolutionMap benchmark — both at the true SME end of the AP automation and B2B payments market (e.g., Bill.com, MineralTree, etc.) and the higher-end in the core middle and upper-middle market (e.g., Medius, Tipalti, etc.), a market that is not as much of a focus for the provider. We also include an updated SWOT analysis.

If you’re new to AvidXchange, you may also wish to start here for all the details about where this AP and payments amalgam fits into the broader finance and procurement technology market:

• AvidXchange: Vendor Analysis (Part 1) — Overview and Solution Strengths/Weaknesses [PRO]
• AvidXchange: Vendor Analysis (Part 2) — SWOT, Competitors & Market Overview, Tech Selection Tips [PRO]
• AvidXchange: Vendor Analysis (Part 3) — In-Depth Solution Overview [PRO]

应付账款， 付款， Technology

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When it comes to B2B payment technology providers, the main competition is either inertia with existing ways or mid- to large-market banks. Banks compete with higher rebate payouts, credit and relationship (share of wallet) but generally lack reporting, reconciliation capabilities, customer service, APIs, front-end technology, spend analysis of payment files, inability to integrate to clients ERP, etc.

A wide range of B2B fintech solutions attempt to compete with their capabilities, customer service, technology, integration experience, etc. And at least 70 source-to-pay platforms have added some form of payment capability or are in the planning stage.

If you lack a money transmitter or bank license, you must partner with a slew of companies to piecemeal solutions together for card, ACH, check print, cross border, virtual card, etc. On top of that, a few are adding some form of embedded finance or at least early pay finance.

Most fintechs look to banks for the cross-selling potential and find banks, while having the customers, are poor at sales.

Finexio is attempting to help companies find a complete payment solution versus their banks that must cobble solutions together.

Here’s why Finexio matters:

• For platforms — The company provides a white-label solution to AP automation players to offer a complete payment solution to their customers. Finexio powers B2B payments infrastructure for three of the world’s top 15 largest accounts payable and procurement software platforms. Platforms include S2P vendors, AP automation vendors, ERP integrators and custom app developers.
• For companies — Finexio’s strategy is to provide many payment options based on what customers need — from e-check to v-card to supply chain finance. Here they compete with banks, which must mix and match solutions but generally lack technology and customer service. Finexio’s focus is on $100 million to $1 billion in revenue.
• For accounting firms that need a complete payment solution as part of their services offerings to companies, accounting firms can white-label their portal, with their logo and color scheme, and launch a turnkey payments offering to customers efficiently.

， Solution Providers， Technology

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