采购in 2017: The Year’s Most Popular Articles

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过去的一年已成为采购世界的一年。

Old technology companies ceded ground to reigning titans. Market leaders adapted strategies and continued a wave of consolidation. And Spend Matters changed, too, debuting new reports and tools to help procurement leaders better understand the solution provider landscape.

To get a better understanding of where we’ve been and how procurement could continue to change in 2018, check out our top 10 articles of the year below.

IBM Sunsets Emptoris

The rumblings about our biggest story of the year began in April.

From conversations with numerous partners and customers, the Spend Matters team learned that the future of Emptoris within theIBM文件夹已经变得不确定. Following multiple rounds of employee departures, rumors had emerged that IBM was preparing to divest Empotris to an external party.

Those whispers were confirmed in May when SAP Ariba announced it hadformed a strategic partnership与IBM Emptoris。该协议涉及sunsetting Emptoris products over a multiyear timeline and providing customers an opportunity to transition over to SAP Ariba products.

“从IBM Emptoris客户的角度来看，我们对交易的初步分析表明，IBM似乎已经在若干地区拍摄了一条高速公路，这些地区有关其采购应用的未来与本伙伴关系（与彻底销售资产销售），“花样创始人Jason Busch当时写道。“这包括当前IBM Emptoris解决方案的多年支持地平线，作为产品落日的一部分，与IBM继续直接关系，这应该为采购组织提供充分的窗口，以充分考虑并制定正式的过渡计划。”

(Those looking for more insights and recommendations on how the IBM Emptoris and SAP Ariba partnership may affect them should see our花很重要research brief on the news。）

And analysis was not all that Busch provided. In a moving tribute, he penned aeulogy for Emptoris, thanking its founders and employees for their contributions to the development of procurement-centric technology.

“One can quibble with the many things about Emptoris that did not go right or fully as planned (and there are many things). But on the whole, Emptoris did more to move the procurement technology sector forward than just about any other vendor I can think of, driving bold move after bold move on the organic development and acquisition trail.

What is Supplier Management?

This seems like a simple question, but it’s one that thousands of readers were looking to answer in 2017.Defining supplier management可能是棘手的，因为这个词包括广泛的话题，而这个术语在过去十年中的演变中变得更加广泛。另一种方式，供应商管理层已成为供应商生命周期管理，它包括远远超过管理供应商。

So where did we land? Spend Matters analysts Michael Lamoureux and Pierre Mitchell ultimately defined supplier management as “the management of supplier-facing business processes throughout the lifecycle of a supplier.” That’s still quite a mouthful, so if you’re looking for more detail on the definition, best practices for and solution providers serving the supplier management sphere, check out our采购, Contracting and Supplier Management Landscape Definition and Overviewreport.

solutionmap.Debut

2017年第二季度看到了一个新的时代的开头。随着我们的释放first E-Procurement SolutionMap, we entered our humble attempt to update solution provider rankings and comparisons with a unique, persona-based approach.

For more about our SolutionMap approach and to access our most recent update (Q4 2017), go to our333manbetx .

50观看和50要了解2017年

Even as we broke new ground with SolutionMap, Spend Matters continued with its tried and true process for identifying the solution providers that procurement professional should have on their radar to succeed.

The Spend Matters 50 Providers to Know list highlights firms that continue to lead the charge for new procurement technologies and services, driving innovation and changing the way we do business. The 50 Providers to Watch list shines a light on exciting newcomers that are pushing the envelope. Review both by reading therelease article, and stay tuned for May 2018 where we update the lists for this rapidly changing landscape.

Two Mergers and a Rebrand

Vendor consolidation has marked the procurement technology market for the past several years, but M&A activity picked up a big way in 2017.

One of the most perused transactions wasCoupas收购贸易扩展, a provider of e-sourcing and strategic sourcing optimization solutions. Busch wrote ofTrade Extensionsthat the provider has no equal in its niche, and that the deal’s significance to the broader market rivals Ariba’s acquisition of FreeMarkets — a true “game-changer” for the way procurement groups approach strategic sourcing.

(For more on this transaction, see our解决方案和市场分析简介和ourCustomer and Partner Recommendationson Spend Matters PRO.)

Another move that turned heads was the rebrand of a suite provider with a long and storied history in the market. Back in February, SciQuest shed its roots — at least in name — as a solution serving life sciences companies and采用名称jaggaer, derived from the German word for hunter.

The name update indicated a new focus for the company, and although our team was sad to learn that Questie would never again see the light of day, we were optimistic that the change would help the firm move “beyond its traditional focus on select vertical markets and invest to deliver a comprehensive procurement suite, paying equal attention to the 'upstream' strategic components and 'downstream' transactional elements."

Jaggaershowed its commitment to doing just that when earlier this month itacquired suite provider BravoSolution. The combination, closed this week, would make Jaggaer the “largest independent, vertical spend management solution provider in the world,” the company said in a press release, with more than 1,850 customers connected to 3.7 million suppliers in 70 countries.

(Spend Matters PRO subscribers can read our thorough coverage of the Jaggaer-Bravosolution.merger, includingrecommendations for BravoSolution customers,10 questions customers and the market should be asking, and module-level comparisons of the two providers for花费分析,sourcing,供应商管理和contract management。）

Choosing the Right Sourcing Structure

Finally, we come to one of the editorial team’s favorite projects of 2017:Ask Spend Matters. In this new series, we asked you, the reader, to tell us what to investigate and report about the world of procurement.

到目前为止，在亚利桑那州立大学供应链管理的博士学位，这是一个最受欢迎的问题和案文是一个问题来自Piyush Shah，是亚利桑那州立大学供应链管理的博士生：“集中，分散或混合采购结构？我们如何决定？”

简单的答案，编辑 - 大型悉尼拉撒路解释说，“这取决于”。更完整的答案取决于许多因素，包括公司规模，地点，扩张率和行业。看看我们如何回答Shah的问题，一定要这样做read the full article.

Do you have a question that you’d like answered in 2018? Send it to us using the box below!