The Procurement Software Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of The Procurement Software Podcast, host James welcomes Shaun Syvertsen, CEO of Convergent IS, to discuss how organisations can enhance their procurement processes by improving the user experience of SAP.

They delve into the complexities of the system and share insights on how to leverage procurement technology to simplify the intake-to-procure process for companies who use SAP as their ERP.

Tune in to discover practical strategies and tools that can help your organisation navigate the evolving landscape of procurement software, especially tailored for the mid-market.

How to make SAP more user-friendly on the front end

This episode dives into the importance of having a clear procurement strategy before selecting any technology. Sean emphasises the need for clarity in your goals, ensuring alignment between technology solutions and your organisation’s needs.

Key takeaways include:

Defining Your Strategy: Be clear on your procurement approach before exploring technology options.

Aligning with Goals: Make sure the chosen tools align with your organisation’s objectives to avoid adoption gaps.

User Adoption: Sean discusses how user-friendly technology is crucial for ensuring employees engage with the system rather than bypass it.

Expert Guidance: Investing in expert advice early on can save both time and resources by selecting the right technology from the start.

Tune in to learn how a well-defined strategy can lead to successful procurement technology investments and drive long-term organisational success.

Timestamps:

[00:02:10] SAP user experience enhancement

[00:05:14] Know your why before your what

[00:10:02] Integration with SAP systems

[00:12:30] Orchestration in procurement systems

[00:17:59] User adoption and process design

[00:20:16] Procurement transparency and efficiency

[00:23:11] Orchestration solutions in procurement

[00:27:29] Preventing SaaS sprawl in organisations

[00:32:40] Reducing time to value with AI

And that wraps up another episode of The Procurement Software Podcast!

Thanks again for listening, and do please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or rate us on Spotify. Every one helps!

We'll be back at the same time next week, so see you there.

If you want to learn more about Procurement Software, check out the useful links below.

 

Stay in touch!

Grab your ticket to ProcureCon EU in Barcelona with 10% off!

1. Connect with Shaun Syvertsen on LinkedIn
2. Check out ConvergentIS
3. Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
4. Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
5. Download our Tech Map for SMEs
6. Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
7. Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
8. Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
9. Connect with James on LinkedIn

In this week's episode of The Procurement Software Podcast, host James Meads dives into the power of our Tech Maps and how they can simplify your search for the right procurement technology. Whether you're part of a small business, mid-market company, or a large enterprise, Tech Maps from ProcurementSoftware.site offer a tailored approach to finding the technology that best fits your needs. Tune in to learn how to leverage this valuable tool and explore the resources available to support your digital procurement journey. Procurement Tech Maps: SME, Mid-Market and Enterprise This week, we explore how Tech Maps can be a vital tool in navigating the complex procurement technology landscape. Designed to offer a clear overview of various market players, TechMaps help procurement professionals identify solutions that best fit their needs, without the noise of vendor endorsements or biases. We discuss how these maps categorise solutions by target market—whether SMEs, mid-market, or large enterprises—providing a tailored approach to finding the right tools. Beyond just listing companies, the Tech Maps offer a snapshot of the procurement tech ecosystem, helping you on the start of your journey towards making informed decisions. Additionally, the episode highlights the resources available to dive deeper, from a free software database to personalised consultations and detailed research options. By utilising Tech Maps and these supporting tools, organisations can confidently navigate their digital procurement journey. Tune in to discover how our Tech Maps can streamline your search for the perfect procurement technology solutions, tailored to your specific needs. Timestamps: [00:01:42] What should our Tech Maps be used for? [00:06:33] Procurement tech for different businesses. [00:09:02] Spend analytics in tech maps. [00:15:07] Understanding the procurement tech market. [00:17:28] Ways to Find Software Solutions. And that wraps up another episode of The Procurement Software Podcast! Thanks again for listening, and do please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or rate us on Spotify. Every one helps! We'll be back at the same time next week, so see you there. If you want to learn more about Procurement Software, check out the useful links below.   Stay in touch! Grab your ticket to ProcureCon EU in Barcelona with 10% off!

• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

   

This week on The Procurement Software Podcast, host James Meads brings on guest Oliver Jones from Procure4, a UK-based procurement consultancy known for their focus on the mid-market and being solution agnostic. Oliver shares insights and tips for effective procurement tech implementation, offering a unique perspective on the process. Tune in to gain valuable knowledge on driving successful technology adoption in procurement. How to get ROI on digital procurement transformation In this episode, Oliver underscores the importance of communication and managing expectations during procurement technology implementation. He emphasises clear initial communication about the necessity for automation to improve supply performance, transparency, and visibility, aiding smoother stakeholder onboarding. Oliver advocates for a phased, wave-based approach, promoting agility and continuous improvement through feedback. He highlights the need for diverse training formats like quick reference guides, drop-in sessions, and interactive workshops to boost user adoption. Proper data management, including data cleansing and taxonomy creation, ensures accurate reporting and informed decision-making. The hypercare phase involves live usage, immediate assistance, and ongoing support, fostering continuous learning and proficiency. Establishing governance structures and appointing super users enhances this process. Overall, the episode highlights key strategies for effective procurement technology implementation, driving long-term value and stakeholder buy-in. Timestamps: [00:01:54] Procure4's Approach and Market Perspective [00:05:26] Defining ROI in procurement tech. [00:08:33] Building stakeholder relationships for success. [00:11:58] Lazy approach to technology implementation. [00:14:20] Commercial illiteracy in procurement. [00:19:50] Potential banana skins during implementation. [00:23:44] Data's role in process improvement. [00:26:13] Ensuring good post-implementation practices. [00:27:37] Utilising hypercare for software launch. [00:32:09] Favourite guilty pleasure. And that wraps up another episode of The Procurement Software Podcast! Thanks to Oliver for sharing his insights with us today, and thank you again for listening. We'll be back at the same time next week, so see you there. If you want to learn more about Oliver, Procure4, or Procurement Software, check out the useful links below. Stay in touch! Grab your ticket to ProcureCon EU in Barcelona with 10% off!

• Connect with Oliver Jones on LinkedIn
• Check out Procure4
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

Enterprise suites vs. Best-of-Breed is a long-standing and hotly debated topic. This week's episode is an edit of a LinkedIn Live session that I did with Nico. If you'd like to see this on video, just head across to The Procuretech Podcast Page on LinkedIn and watch the complete live stream! The ongoing debate between Best-of-Breed vs. Enterprise Suites: Which solution is best? We start off with a brief introduction of who we are, and our background. Always good to know how we both got into this space! Then, we dive in to an overview of what, and who, the enterprise suites are. If anyone is listening to the show who isn't an expert in procurement technology, we break it down in easy-to-understand language. So, what DOES an "all-in-one" suite do, and encompass, and where do they typically fall short? And why are best-of-breed solutions such hot property right now, and where could they potentially pose problems due to the fragmentation of needing to make numerous solutions communicate with one another? Nico makes a good case for how a suite can make life easy by covering everything all in one platform. I counter this by arguing that while that may be true, the cost and the complex, tedious implementation requirements make these suites out-of-reach for non-enterprise companies. So, where are the limitations of suites, and what are the pitfalls of best-of-breed solutions? When does a suite make sense vs. when does best-of-breed have the upper hand? Like most complex questions, it kind of depends. Suites are not agile. They take time to plan, scope and implement. Whereas best-of-breed may have the upper hand in terms of flexibility and agility, on the flipside it requires integration between multiple solutions. This has been made simpler thanks to APIs and cloud-based infrastructure, but your IT department will need to be open-minded towards change. Suites tend to be more bulky. Risk of obsolescence by the time a suite is fully implemented and integrated is a real concern. While Nico oversaw the transformation at P&G five years ago and was extremely happy with the result, the world has changed since then. Best-of-breed was a much smaller ecosystem back then than it is now, especially since the proliferation and growth of procuretech since the start of the pandemic. We finish off the live cast by looking at where this space is heading, and a lot of the future trends which may, or may not happen! It's always so much fun to speculate though! Specifically, we examine:

• Will there be a consolidation of the best-of-breed market, as companies who fail to deliver the expected growth don't make the grade for the next round of funding?
• Who will buy them up? The suites or other BoB providers? Or will other procurement software companies simply poach their best talent and / or purchase their IP?
• Realistically, the market probably isn't big enough for 5 suite providers. Will we see a consolidation among the suite providers, as both best-of-breed solutions and the market leading suites both attack the less dominant suites and eat into their market share?

Stay in touch!

• Connect with Nico on LinkedIn
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

Our final episode in our mini-series of e-Sourcing platforms brings us to a well-estalished provider who has been in the space for over 20 years. So, during the interview with Henrik Balslev, CCO of Danish Source-to-Contract (S2C) software Scanmarket, the most obvious thing to talk about was all of the data they've collected since they've been offering e-auctions and RFx solutions to their customers. Using 20 Years of E-Auction Data to Help Customers Gain Competitive Advantage - Henrik Balslev from Scanmarket Scanmarket have been around a long time and are one of the early e-sourcing providers. They recently acquired Swiss-based contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform Symfact to complement their offerings in the S2C space, and can count customers in 86 different countries who use their software. Their typical client is pretty industry agnostic and somewhere from €1 billion to €20 billion annual turnover, so large enterprises but certainly not Fortune 500 territory. How have e-auctions evolved? Henrik has been involved in e-auction statistics since 2006. E-auctions are now being used as a more everyday tool and The evolution has been predominantly in these areas:

• Less focus purely on price
• More thought around which commodities or categories to tender in an auctions
• More thought and strategy regarding which type of auction or e-sourcing event to utilise
• When in the process to take the negotiation process offline and move to in person discussions

The move towards a total cost of ownership (TCO) strategy in many organisations has been the bedrock behind these seismic shifts. What about using auctions for services? Henrik surprisingly confirms that services have always been in the top 10 of most auctioned areas of spend within Scanmarket's platform, but they have seen a significant uptick since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. What sets services apart is that it is often more tricky to get stakeholders on board for tendering using an e-auction, and that it's also more difficult to measure some of the nuances in proposals for services. "Use the tool when and where it makes sense" is a very good time from Henrik to make sure that it aids and abets the user, rather than hindering the process through having a policy that forces category managers to use a software that isn't suitable for the tender or RFP in mind. Running the auction for certain elements within a specific provision of service can also be a successful strategy, and then inviting the top 3 suppliers from the auction to 1-on-1 negotiations to discuss the devil behind the detail. In other words, auctions are a great way to shortlist vendors if there is a large pool of potential suppliers for a certain service. How specifically does Scanmarket leverage their auction data? The same category for one company can be completely different to the situation within another organisation. There are so many parameters that aren't fixed and are dependent upon an organisation's maturity of procurement, relationship with incumbent vendor, and so on. Rather than focusing on this, they tend to look at more holistic data. Henrik cites an example of the optimal number of vendors to include in an auction. Bringing in an extra supplier into the auction statistically increases the savings by 1.11%, but only up to a total of 7 participating suppliers. Increasing the supplier count beyond 7 doesn't bring additional savings according to Scanmarket's data. We explore how a customer can also best achieve their end goal based on the different auction types and functionalities which can be switched on and off. The "if this, then that" (IFTTT) scenarios which can be looked into based on the data that Scanmarket has, to be able to guide the customer along a path that is likely, statistically, to be more successful. Dealing with supplier reluctance to participate Henrik explains that reluctance to participate often comes from the Category Manager not communicating effectively to the supplier the exact purpose of running an auction. While incumbents will always be reluctant to be challenged, he explains the importance of being able quantify the value of the non-price factors and make it clear that it's being measured on TCO, rather than just a tool to beat up suppliers on price. Communication and conditioning is key prior to launching the event, especially transparency with regard to how the bids will be evaluated and against which specific criteria. Competing with established suites vs. startups I ask Henrik how they manage to sit in a space where they are seeing competition from established, large suites with a very large marketing budget, versus disruptive startups such as Archlet (episode 9) and DeepStream (episode 11) who are entering the space and challenging existing providers. He cites 3 main areas:

1. Having an intuitive UI and UX that makes them competitive against the startups entering the space.
2. Ensuring that the product is feature rich like the suites are, but not too complex when it comes to accessing and performing this functionality.
3. Using their customer success team as a competitive advantage to ensure that customers get the most out of the tool and are able to use it to its full potential.
4. Connecting customers with other companies who are using Scanmarket who can learn from one another on their journey of using the tool..

Stay in touch!

• Scanmarket e-auction savings reports
• Connect with Henrik on LinkedIn * I incorrectly introduced him as CTO on the podcast, whereas his actual title is Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

A tool that's easy to use and affordable, but also very versatile in terms of what it can do and the add-ons that go with it. We continue our mini-series of e-sourcing solutions today with Market Dojo. They've grown a feature rich e-sourcing tool that is offered as a simple, pay monthly software but also comes with many different additional modules to complement the core RFx / e-auction software on offer. I spoke to one of their Co-Founders, Nic Martin, to discuss what brought them this far, and what their plans are for the future. Combining ease-of-use with flexible contracts and plenty of additional modules - Nic Martin from Market Dojo Market Dojo has a wide range of customers - from consultants through to SMEs and larger businesses. They see their flexible pricing model as one of their strengths, essentially enabling anyone to use their software on a pay-as-you-go basis. This opens up the tool to independent consultants, small businesses and growing startups, as well as their more established customer base. Part of the Market Dojo philosophy has been studying a lot of the B2C marketplaces, the most obvious being Amazon, and trying to emulate as much as possible their interface, simplicity and general user experience. How important is UX? The challenge of receiving customer feedback over the years has meant that it requires a balance of deciding what is really needed vs. what are nice-to-haves. Keeping users happy while maintaining a solution that is easy and intuitive to use has been key in balancing how to incorporate new features into the product. What different types of auctions and RFx are available?

• Core product is e-auctions
• RFQ
• Live questionnaires / surveys to factor in considerations other than price, which can provide real time feedback during the event
• Advanced lots: obtaining cost breakdowns at a much deeper level, without relying on Excel after-the-fact.

How do they avoid the trap of trying to be everything to everyone? Figuring out in the early days to understand WHAT features to pitch to WHICH type of customers has helped Market Dojo to learn and grow, and also to decide which features to prioritise. Some aspects of the tool may be more valuable to some users than others. For example, an independent consultant may place a lot of value on a choice of different types of e-auctions, whereas an SME or growing startup would need a lot more hand holding when it comes to running events, and perhaps appreciate simplicity and an intuitive UX a lot more. Niching down is a great marketing theory in principle, but they found that they were winning customers in quite different industries and niches during their early days. Market Dojo has since seen e-auctions run on such diverse categories of spend as global freight, purchased parts and fruit & vegetables, so versatility and offering a solution that can be used in a variety of different industries has been a difficult but possible balance to achieve. Maturing from a pure play e-Sourcing tool to a more rounded solution Taking on board customer feedback was a key factor in instigating Market Dojo to develop additional modules as they have grown from being a pure play e-Sourcing solution into evolving into more of a mini-suite. An example is with the supplier onboarding tool, which was developed based on a request that was made from one of their early customers. One of their biggest challenges was with supplier intake, and they recognised that Market Dojo would be a good solution for this if they could expand beyond just the sourcing module. Whereas on the other hand, some customer requests were seen not to be aligned with their overall vision and direction, and instead led them to seek out partners who could offer such a solution as a best-of-breed solution that could be integrated with Market Dojo's software. Nic cites Per Angusta's procurement savings and value performance reporting solution as being a great example of where they felt it was better to partner with an existing solution rather than develop something as an add-on. Listen to Series 1, Episode 13 for my interview with their CEO, Pierre Lapree to get more information on what Per Angusta offers. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) versus a more simple contract repository tool is another example of how Market Dojo offers a basic solution but where they have partnered with other providers in the space for customers who require a more comprehensive solution. Stay in touch!

• Market Dojo website
• Connect with Nic on LinkedIn
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

We're back with the third in our 5-part series on e-sourcing platforms, and this week we're looking at how e-sourcing can fit into a wider scope covered by a software solution. How can an e-sourcing requirement be married together with upstream and downstream features to create a mini-suite centred around vendor management, with e-sourcing at its core? This is what my guest this week, David Wadler, has created with the Vendorful platform, and he's here to walk us through how this approach can reduce the need for too many SaaS applications in one organisation. Does a Mini Suite of Best-of-Breed Vendor Relationship Management Trump "One Trick Pony" Software? NYC native David starts by giving us some history of his background and how he kind of fell into software engineering and growing a startup after living abroad in France for a number of years. His first experience of procurement was serendipitous, having sold his first software company to Lexmark, who then engaged him on an assignment to look into costs in their IT category. He quickly realised that the sourcing process was broken and was very administrative and manual, and hence Vendorful as a concept was born! E-Sourcing vs. Vendor Management Platform The idea for Vendorful was borne out of an initial concept to build a sourcing tool for IT. As customers demanded more and more features, they followed a strategy they called customer driven development. As David explains, this was based on features that existing customers were asking for rather than internally driven by product strategy. This resulted in Vendorful growing initially to serve e-sourcing beyond the IT category, and then ultimately to become what it is now; a vendor lifecycle management platform which covers some of the activities further upstream and downstream which would have been conducted on email or spreadsheets. Moving from Excel and ERP to one single platform David knew they were onto something when a customer contacted them requesting something that had nothing relating to e-sourcing. He gives an example of supplier onboarding and management where a customer was manually typing in and uploading documents into an ERP system, and managing the records through an Excel spreadsheet which was manually updated. Knowing that there was a better way, this led Vendorful to be developed into more of a full stack vendor management system, covering much more than just e-sourcing. Indeed, eliminating a lot of manual processes around vendor lifecycle management (VLM) is one of the key attributes they now see as their USP. VLM platform plus P2P integration outside of ERP Vendorful doesn't touch any steps of the procure-to-pay (P2P) process and instead sees itself as a platform that would go hand-in-hand with a best-of-breed P2P platform. This tech stack is a very viable alternative to one of the established source-to-pay (S2P) suites, or indeed trying to perform this activity natively in an ERP system with, inevitably, the need to revert to email and Excel for some of the process and analysis. They see their segment and price point as being particularly competitive to mid-sized businesses and even to some enterprises who perhaps want something more user-friendly or versatile. Their cost is in the low 6-figure ($) typically versus price tags of over $1 million for enterprise level S2P suites. David quips that it was once described by a sales executive for one of the suites as "Google Docs for Procurement"! Defending market position from the bigger suites If the suites see them potentially as a danger and move into their market segment, what ways can they differentiate themselves and compete with companies with a much bigger marketing budget? Vendorful is a new product and is not built on a legacy tech stack that is over 10 years old. It is seen as more versatile and is able to cope with more complexity, based on some of the feedback they have received from customers who have done RFIs and RFPs and have ultimately sourced They do 5 or 6 different things narrow and deep, rather than trying to do everything wide and shallow. David gives the example of not trying to complete with full stack contract lifecycle management software platforms as an example of this. What is the downside of buying a tech stack of individual best-of-breed solutions? David coins the term "mini suite" to differentiate what Vendorful is and what it does versus the "one trick pony" very niched down best-of-breed solutions. He describes it as a "Goldilocks" solution, where the customer perhaps needs to invest in 3 different pieces of software rather than 10+ different applications that all, somehow, have to speak to each other and work in tandem. While eRFX is too narrow, similarly building a suite to compete with the big, established players was seen as being an unviable strategy to succeed in a crowded, mature marketplace. Email and Excel as competitors We briefly discuss how, even with so many e-sourcing solutions out there, many of them are not necessarily competing against one another. Rather, the huge market out there they are seeking are the businesses that are still using email and Excel to manage their vendors and their e-sourcing requirements. Can you still manage all of this using Excel? Sure, but it will take you longer as an end-to-end process and it will require more administrative management. In essence, it's a false economy, which over time will result in your organisation becoming less competitive. Stay in touch!

• Contact with David via email or LinkedInVendorful website
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

On this week's episode, we explore a topic that is becoming ever more important when it comes to selecting a piece of software in the B2B space. Adoption and acceptance of procurement technology within an organisation is highly dependent on a software's user experience and ease of use. And yet very little is spoken about this when we look at review sites and awards for procurement software. This week's guest is Jack MacFarlane, CEO of DeepStream Technologies. They're an e-sourcing platform with UX at the heart of what they do. But can it compete and hold its own against established solutions already on the market? Putting User Experience at the Heart of E-Sourcing Software – Jack MacFarlane from DeepStream Jack is not a procurement pro and actually has a background in investment banking, as he explains in the intro. Going from here to found a procurement software company was a decision he took as a result of a gap he saw in the market for businesses to transact and source with each other more effectively. He saw an email and attachment-based sourcing methodology that was endemic in the businesses he had worked in or experienced, and knew there was a better way. This despite some of the more mature and established competition that is already out there in the marketplace. User experience: how important is it compared to features? Being the "Mac vs. the Microsoft" as Jack explains it was the USP they wanted to achieve when designing the experience behind DeepStream. From a product philosophy perspective, building a digital platform that was as straightforward to use as sending emails and Excel sheets was their main goal. Stripping out features and functionality was seen as a necessary evil to ensure that simplicity was key, all the way from supplier onboarding through to sourcing and awarding of tenders. What impact can having a better UX have when it comes to user adoption? The comparison that Jack makes is with the smartphone. We use a multitude of apps to perform all the activities we use our smartphone for. There isn't one single suite we use on our phones. The same argument can be made for best-of-breed procurement technology because design and functionality, when it's done right, can trump an all-in-one platform when it comes to usability and adoption. The easier it is you make something to use, the lower the barriers are to adoption. People can self-learn without the need for lengthy courses or training. You don't need consultants during the implementation phase. So, logically you're then much more likely to get higher adoption. Not only that, but over time, if the software is easy to use then people are likely to stick with using it vs. reverting to the tried and tested method of using email and spreadsheets. The case for features vs. simplicity If you can essentially digitise within a day, and have users and business units up and running almost immediately, it can organically expand and develop more quickly than a more complex piece of software. "You're never going to see the benefits of digital platforms if you have low engagement rates and it's hard to use" as Jack argues. He sees the more traditional enterprise model to be:

• Strategy to buy a feature rich, expensive software suite that requires a lot of training to use
• Get management buy-in
• Top down "enforcement" of the policy

Which ultimately fails if over time, users revert back to form and use what they feel comfortable with i.e. email and Excel. What about UX for supplier onboarding? While suppliers will always be sceptical towards e-sourcing software, DeepStream have endeavoured to make the supplier experience as smooth as possible. The average onboarding time for suppliers is < 5 minutes and it's free to register. There are also a couple of measures that they are using to encourage suppliers to get more from the platform Supplier engagement is one of the KPIs that they track in terms of response rate vs. the previous process before implementing DeepStream as a platform. What they are seeing is that it is higher when they use the platform. They put this down to not just user experience but also the automation of the "nudging" to get them to sign up, accept and respond to the RFP. Doing this by email is manual, whereas this can be automated using an e-sourcing tool. How are DeepStream growing in a crowded marketplace? Their feedback from customers is that they see the benefit as being able to have all of their data in a single source of truth, especially with increasing audit and compliance requirements. The "G" in ESG of having a collaborative, easy-to-use software for all of their data governance in the sourcing process is a big plus point. Supplier evaluation (qualitative and quantitative) is also a feature and a benefit of being able to use an e-sourcing platform, and DeepStream also offers this. Supplier matching and leveraging the network data that is in the Deep Stream platform. Building algorithms that will help to match suppliers that may be interested in bidding on the items that a client is seeking to source. As more clients and suppliers sign up, this will also grow and increase in value. Are DeepStream seeking to niche down into a specific sector to leverage this further? While on the one hand the product is industry agnostic, to benefit from supplier matching clearly helps if they have customers from a similar industry sector. DeepStream has specifically niched down on the greentech sector and has seen rapid growth in this area. Because many of these companies are scaleups or new companies who don't have a stack of legacy software, the mindset of these type of organisations seems to match their philosophy with the UX-first proposition. The appetite within this industry sector tends to be more open towards using new technology and seems to be uninhibited by a more resistant-to-change mindset that can be found in more traditional corporations. Stay in touch!

• Contact Jack by email
• DeepStream website
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn

This week we kick off a mini-series of 5 podcasts on e-sourcing software. On the one hand, this is a mature market, with lots of established players. Indeed, many of the larger suites started out as auction platforms back in the day. But this is now being challenged by fresh thinking and new technology, especially as businesses realise that there are way more possibilities to drive value here than just through a traditional e-auction platform. First up, we welcome Tim Grunow and Lukas Wawrla from Zurich-based startup Archlet to the podcast. Leveraging E-Sourcing to Consider Non-Price Factors - Lukas Wawrla & Tim Grunow from Archlet Archlet began as a university project, and has since developed into a startup with over 30 employees, which recently secured $10 million in Series A funding to continue its path of impressive growth since inception in 2019. Tim explains how they grew quickly to learn about supporting a client on a packaging sourcing project during a university consulting assignment, and how this ultimately became the spin-off that then became Archlet. Why are companies still using Email and Excel, with so many e-sourcing tools already out there? Lukas argues that perhaps it's flexibility. The tools are not versatile, flexible or user-friendly enough to facilitate an end-to-end sourcing event completely within platform. At some point, sourcing managers get stuck or frustrated with the tool and revert back to form, which means going offline and using Excel to analyse the data from their tenders. We talk about re-thinking procurement tools starting with the user first and explore a great graphic that I came across when I was on Archlet's website, all about Procurement's digitalisation journey: If we consider e-sourcing, there are 5 stages: Stage 1 - 100% Email and Excel based Stage 2 - Supported by technology i.e. using an e-sourcing tool as a repository to collect bids or run e-auctions, but then the analysis and post-event requirements are typically done off platform; often then offline in Excel. Stage 3 - Optimisation: The ability to perform the end-to-end event, including supplier onboarding, event management, post-event analysis and negotiation completely within the e-sourcing platform Stage 4 - Guided Sourcing: How you could use the tool to create your scenarios to get to your desired outcomes faster? Leveraging external data as part of this to augment and complement the data in a sourcing event. Stage 5 - Autonomous Sourcing: Completely autonomous. Will we ever get there? This is the blue sky scenario! So, how can we avoid post-event deferment to Excel? Focusing on the USER as a key USP, instead of being driven by features and process. Many existing e-sourcing tools are seen as being process-centric. Archlet have focused on "consumerising" the approach. They see the key as being feature-rich enough to offer the value that other tools can't offer, but at the same time have user-friendliness and ease-of-use at the heart of the product. Their trick that they have up their sleeve is using external data sources from other third parties to add value to and enhance the e-sourcing data, enabling users to incorporate this into their supplier selection process during a sourcing event. Leveraging non-price and external data factors into the sourcing decision Tim and Lukas walk us through their strategy of having tools integrated into their platform that cover other non-price related aspects of an e-sourcing event. Archlet recently partnered with existing tech offered by Tealbook and Ecovadis for example, which can be integrated into their e-sourcing process and their data leveraged to add this into the native data that is returned as part of the e-sourcing event. The opportunity to have additional know-how that you don't necessarily have directly from your suppliers with the responses that they give. Having this data in your decision-making and your post tender discussions will enable more meaningful negotiations and follow-up conversations moving towards making a final sourcing decision. Are stakeholders more engaged in sourcing events if they see events being less focused on price? Tim gives an example of a reference customer, who as a part of their Procurement Excellence team has someone in charge of game theoretical processes when it comes to negotiation design. This person is much more involved in getting involves with buyers to help them use data to structure their negotiations. They can look at many different parameters now, both price and non-price, to design that negotiation before they go into battle with their suppliers post-tender. Having this approach has facilitated a more collaborative engagement with stakeholders during and after sourcing events. Stay in touch!

• Connect with Tim and Lukas on LinkedIn
• Archlet website
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The Lowdown on Spend Matters 50 To Know / 50 To Watch and the ProcureTech100

This week is a solo episode. I rarely do them, and I thought long and hard before publishing this.

At the end of the day, I'm just one person who has a keen interest in digital procurement technology. I'm not an academic or a researcher, but I do take a passionate interest in what is out there and I have some strong views on what I feel should be the priorities when it comes to digital procurement transformations.

I'm also acutely aware that most of the listeners to the podcast are not CPOs in enterprise level organisations. My aim is to bring content out there to Procurement Leaders outside of Fortune 500 companies and to shine light on solutions that are a fit for regular, mid-market businesses.

Challenging or questioning the conventional wisdom of how these lists are made up is something I debated for a while.

Ultimately I decided that listeners need to know and understand what goes into selecting these lists, so as they can look at them with a critical mindset and draw their own conclusions.

I sincerely hope this episode provides value to everyone who listens to it and I would love to hear your feedback!

Spend Matters Spend Matters are a household name to anyone in the Procurement space and are part of a larger parent company, Azul Partners. Spend Matters was founded by Jason Busch in 2004 and was one of the first Procurement and Supply Chain Blogs. The focus on digital procurement technology with their 50 To Watch and 50 To Know began in earnest in 2014, and has since grown to be the go-to resource for research, analysis and content in the digital procurement space. So, what are the 50 To Watch and 50 To Know? Let's have a look: Almanac They're part of a wider directory of digital procurement solutions housed on the Spend Matters called the Spend Matters Almanac. The Almanac has over 530 listings from 59 categories and over 140 analyst insights. Feeding into the Almanac is the Spend Matters Solution Map, an interactive software solution finder, where the user can select a comparison of different types of procurement software based on a bunch of different criteria and buying personas. Spend Matters have a pretty big analyst team to crunch the data, and the listings have been going since 2014, so they have a huge back catalogue of content and analysis to draw from! There are 23 different categories in the Almanac in total, and not all of them are focused on software itself. There are some consulting, training and membership organisations included in here too. But this is what sets the base for the 50 To Know and 50 To Watch So, how do we get from here to the 50 To Know and 50 To Watch lists? "The Spend Matters® annual 50 Providers to Know and 50 Providers to Watch lists are determined by the entire Spend Matters analyst team to represent the best of the commercial providers that serve enterprise-level procurement organizations." "We do not include brand new startups with only a few employees and customers who are piloting some “minimum viable products”. We track over a dozen of them right now and are working on highlighting them in the near future." Spend Matters makes it very clear that participation is NOT "pay-to-play", rather "participate-to-play". So, the 50 To Watch and 50 To Know is NOT sponsored content. BUT It can, however, mean that if a provider does not agree to participate according to the (pretty lengthy) RFI criteria laid down by Spend Matters that their solution will not be included. This is also acknowledged by Spend Matters themselves - they openly recognise that there are some solutions out there who may be worthy of making the list but choose not to put themselves through the participation process for whatever reason. "From a methodology perspective, first, the analysts review last year’s lists and determine which providers no longer meet the criteria as listed above. Then we add in the providers who have made an impact (or resurgence) in the market." So, the previous list is the starting point, which is then refined, updated, discussed, debated by Spend Matters analyst team: This is based on the usual adage of good solutions lose their way, and new companies enter the market to challenge them. The 50 To Know The 50 To Know are the ones Spend Matters recognises at the best-in-class in the procurement and supply chain technology market. Focusing on the key criteria such as innovation, market presence, tech competency, and solution delivery. According to Spend Matters, these are the 50 most established and form the cornerstone of technology that enterprise level procurement teams should be aware of. Some of them are not pure-play procurement tech companies. The 50 To Know tends to focus on a mixture of enterprise level procurement suites on the one hand, as well as other well-established software dealing with other areas of the business that touch on procurement and supply chain i.e. cross border payments, financial risk, fraud, tax etc. The list also includes Suplari and Orpheus, who have now been acquired by Microsoft and McKinsey respectively. In fact, there are only 10 that I would describe as pure-play procuretech solutions. Of course, this is just my analysis as one person with a keen interest in procurement tech. Take this with a large pinch of salt, because my "criteria" are going to be different than a CPO of a Fortune 500 company when evaluating what procurement tech solutions are interesting. But that's the whole point, and is a general comment which I'll explore later. These lists are built, reviewed and evaluated with the needs and requirements of procurement teams from the world's largest corporations in mind. If you're a procurement leader for a $500 million company, a lot of what you see here will most likely not be so relevant. 50 To Watch Typically the Providers to Watch list sees more turnover than the Providers to Know, and this rang true in 2021 with almost one-third of the Providers to Watch being new to the list from last year. Future 5 Now we're talking. This is a new feature this year, and I love it. The startups featured in this section are, according to Spend Matters website:

• Is < 5 years old, with ideally < 2 years in the market (official product launch)
• Has 5+ customers
• Has an innovative, interesting application of technology
• Maintains clear momentum and sustainability
• Has < $10 million in revenue

ProcureTech100 ProcureTech is a new platform, founded in 2020 by CEO Lance Younger, based in London. They are a new business and are still growing out their services but they have a prominent collaboration with Kearney which is featured heavily on their website. The ProcureTech100 was announced in October 2021. ProcureTech claims on their website that the 100 were selected from research of over 4,000 digital procurement solutions. Now, I'm not actually convinced there are over 4,000 digital procurement solutions out there. But let's overlook that for a moment. The shortlist was selected using statistical analysis of over 40 key data points, including growth, security, customer, financial and employee data. This shortlist was then taken to a panel of over 60 experts. These experts are listed on their website and are a mix of practitioners, consultants, former CPOs,  VC firms and procurement services providers. But, this is where the trail goes a little bit cold: How they selected them doesn't appear to be very transparent at all. Let's take a look who's in the ProcureTech100: Well, first of all, it's dominated by a large number of enterprise level suites. The kind of names that when you talk to the average procurement professional who actually uses the software day-in, day-out, they don't seem too enthused by their experience of using them. There are also a lot of providers in there who, while they definitely DO focus on procurement as part of their solution, are not exclusively a digital procurement technology provider. In fairness, there are also some top, best-of-breed exclusively procuretech solutions in the list too. It's great to see these companies featured, especially some of those which have experienced some rapid growth since...