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Guy Hubball has been around. He was one of three CPOs at BP, but also CPO at ABN Amro (OK, we won't hold him responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, not totally anyway) and previously worked for Caradon and others. Indeed, when I first moved into consulting, he rejected my tender response to an ABN opportunity with a withering and probably fair assessment of my firm's capability. But we'll forgive him for that!

Hubball spoke at the recent SAP Ariba Summit and started off with some pretty non-controversial material around where we are in procurement currently, focusing on people, process, and systems. In terms of process, people are comparing work experience with home life - buying from Amazon or similar websites, for instance. But we must remember in procurement that we do have corporate policies to apply. However, we can improve processes and simplify. He wished that he had spotted sooner that the BP process was too complex, he said - "it took me too long to improve that. One problem is everyone agrees we should have a standard process - as long as it is theirs"!

On people, he observed that we are in the war for talent - and he focused on the lack of capability to implement technology, as identified in the Deloitte CPO survey. We need to segment the capabilities required to help us find those scarce people and skills.

On systems, it has been tough historically to get what procurement needed, as a lot of the "procurement" systems were built around finance and control, not our requirements. We should be more demanding, but procurement has not always delivered on our promises. He was surprised to see the winner of the CIPS SM Technology award talking about a saving of £99,000 in the first year - he thought they must mean £99 million! (Funnily enough, Supply Management didn't report that part of his speech). But he hopes we are on the cusp of real improvement here.

This was all good stuff, but then he really got me interested. He talked about the future, and how we will "engage by voice". I hadn't thought of this angle - the "system" will recognise our voice, and automatically know who we are, what spending and budget authorities we have, which suppliers we prefer, what we have bought before. An engineer will just take a picture of the valve they want, and the system will identify what it is, produce the spec and source it or check whether it is already in stock somewhere in the organisation.

Data will feed back into the category teams, some will be embedded in the business, or even with suppliers. He believes there will be 3 organisational elements for procurement in the future; procurement operations, which is a tech play. Category management, a core competency for procurement. and finally, the data team, which is a new competency. He sees this as separate to the CatMan team - a level of independence is vital, he thinks, but this capability / function doesn't really exist at the moment.

There are, he believes four building blocks for success - the right operating model, a talent management strategy, digitisation of the end-to-end process, and a robust medium-term technology roadmap.

BP had already started going down this route, with the operating model for instance blending people in lower-cost areas for low-value spend, and higher-value / high-skill folk close to the business. Category leaders need to be high-status; they need to be able to talk confidently to the Board, and need people who are good at collaborating. He talked briefly about future technology too, like Blockchain and AI, and said that BP was engaged in digitisation too, moving more processes to the Ariba platform.

And one of his most important messages was this - executives need to think more deeply about their role in terms of working with technology, and procurement leaders need to be more engaged with technology than ever before. "Be bold, engage with your business and engage with technology".

And amen to that - a good and interesting session from Hubball.

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Guy Hubball at SAP Ariba Summit - Skills, Tech and the Future of Procurement

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Guy Hubball has been around. He was one of three CPOs at BP, but also CPO at ABN Amro (OK, we won't hold him responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, not totally anyway) and previously worked for Caradon and others.

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When looking at how the world of work has changed, it is critical to note the major shifts that have transformed the very perception of work today. There are several key areas from which the worlds of talent and technology are changing, all of which convergence to reinforce the notion that the Future of Work is here.

One of the standout strategies inherent in the Future of Work is the modern company's support for remote or virtual workers; one key dynamic of the Gig Economy is that top-tier freelancers and contractors have the ability (technologically speaking) to work and collaborate with businesses via teleconferencing, virtual collaboration platforms, and conferencing technology. The fact that the majority of enterprises surveyed for Ardent's research indicate their support for remote work is a crucial piece in understanding how the totality of the Future of Work will impact the future: as more support is generated for work outside of the office walls, it enables contemporary businesses to scale their staff in such a way that backs the notion of enterprise agility.

What is also interesting is that while only 38% of executive teams are currently rethinking how work is done via transformational ideas, another 54% expect to experience this within the next two years. Business leaders are listening to what is happening in the market, and understand that, in order to keep pace with competition, are beginning to transform the way work is done within their respective organizations. Also, while adoption/implementation of other key strategic Future of Work drives is low today across other attributes, it is clear that today's enterprises have a keen sense of how they want to optimize work within the next two years:

Sixty-one percent (61%) of businesses plan to utilize a "cultural integration" strategy for "blending" non-traditional and FTE workers, a concept that helps improve the overall culture of the enterprise while also improving the overall talent experience (and, therefore, creating an "aura" in which top-tier freelancers and non-employees are willing to reengage with the organization for future projects).

Forty-seven percent (47%) expect to "consumerize" key HR, human capital management, and talent management processes. The consumerization of business processes falls in line with the greater notion of on-demand talent engagement; the same real-time processes consumers enjoy in their personal lives are now enabled inside the functional roles of businesses. Onboarding, offboarding, assessments, digital learning, etc., are all facets of the HR world that are fast-becoming more consumerized in how they are accessed and the impact they deliver.

There has been much discussion regarding the "employee experience," which is a concept used to gauge how connected and engaged employees are with their roles, business operations, and the greater enterprise. Thirty-four percent (34%) of businesses expect to adopt this strategy in the short-term, understanding that, in the Future of Work, the everyday experiences of all talent (including non-employees, included in the "talent experience"), is paramount to how work is done.

RELATED ARTICLES Great CPOs Highlight the CPO Rising Summit Agenda What CPOs Are Saying About the CPO Rising Summit Learn How to Turn Procurement Intelligence Into Procurement Agility - The CPO Rising 2018 Summit Turn the Big Data "Crisis" into Big Data Opportunities - Join us at CPO Rising 2018!
Tagged in: Ardent Partners Research, Christopher Dwyer, Complex Categories, Contingent Workforce, Innovation, Process, Strategy, Technology

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The Strategic Drivers Behind the Future of Work " CPO RISING - THE SITE FOR CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICERS & LEADERS IN SUPPLY MANAGEMENT

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When looking at how the world of work has changed, it is critical to note the major shifts that have transformed the very perception of work today. There are several key areas from which the worlds of talent and technology are changing, all of which convergence to reinforce the notion that the Future of Work is here.

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Advanced analytics provides data-driven insight and power that procurement can leverage to make impactful business decisions. For organizations that are yet to tap this value, it is time to make the move and gear up for a future when big data will be the deciding word.

The power of procurement was overlooked for long subjecting it to tactical activities. But today, Procurement teams are calling the shots and making the most important business decisions. We know that for any good decision, quality data plays a major role. But how can procurement be sure that their guiding data is the best? This is where advanced analytics come to force. Through advanced analytics, procurement earns a grip on spend by analyzing various data sets and resources. While data is processed for quality, advanced analytics helps manage suppliers through track performance reports, POS data, customer grievances, deliveries, and more. A conservative outlook may refute this as something regular spend-analysis has already been providing. For them, it is important to note that it is only with advanced analytics technology that a business can predict market demand, availability of resources, and design intelligent procurement strategies.

An important aspect of advance analytics is its transformational impact on how business leaders will manage their supply chains. Good analytics will support procurement leaders to give their best in terms of planning purchase timing, and keeping an eye on inventories to ensure steady supply for manufacturing and/or consumer demand schedules. This certainly includes identifying cost savings and taking measures against foreseeable threats to business. This will empower procurement and convert the function as a strategic limb for better business outcome.

Below discussed are some of the areas to directly benefit from advanced analytics-

Market Intelligence: Advanced analytics will take global supply and demand data into account to offer real-time recommendations for procurement to champion its business objectives.

Risk Mitigation: Advanced analytics will study global events and their impact on supply chain to shield procurement against any kind of risk.

Pricing Optimization: Under the pretext of profitability, price optimization is a feature of advanced analytics. It takes into account the supply-demand environment, global & regional economic conditions, and seasonal price change and helps buyer negotiate better.

Vendor Selection: Advanced analytics powered by AI helps analyze vendor data to produce vendor scorecards suitable for recognizing high performing suppliers, build lasting relationship, and remove the non-performers.

The scope of this discussion cannot be limited to this short article and hence we developed a whitepaper discussing the subject in details. The whitepaper explores the role of analytics in procurement starting from its genesis to its scope (partly discussed above) to its future ambitions.

As the old skin of procurement slough off, there are newer challenges that it must be able to tackle in terms of decision making. And to achieve this, the role of analytics is indispensable. For any efficient purchasing process, analytics is the key platform enabling organizations tremendous visibility into their procurement functions and yield more than traditional spend reduction. Having said this, building in-house analytics capabilities requires organizations to be mindful of time, money, and other resources to be invested. To skip this arduous process, it is recommended to go for an expert. The only way for procurement organizations to stay relevant is to latch itself with this fast pace evolution in analytics.
🔒This is a limited preview of a whitepaper. Please bookmark the blog and visit in a fortnight to download it.

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Procurement Analytics- Empowering the Future of Procurement

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The power of procurement was overlooked for long subjecting it to tactical activities. But today, Procurement teams are calling the shots and making the most important business decisions. We know that for any good decision, quality data plays a major role. But how can procurement be sure that their guiding data is the best?

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On Oct. 3, 2018, Upwork became a public company listed on the Nasdaq exchange. Its stock was offered at $15 per share and has since been trading in the $19 to $21 range, giving it a market valuation on the order of $2 billion. This was a company that emerged from a new segment of innovative, online platform intermediaries, and just six years ago, was widely considered to be a non-starter, even dismissed as a "flash-in-the-pan," by practitioners in the staffing industry. Now, based on gross revenue/gross services volume, it would rank among some of the world's largest staffing companies. The Upwork IPO was not only an important milestone in the evolving and increasingly digitized contingent workforce space, it also presented an opportunity to look more clearly into the company and assess where it stands (and might eventually stand) in the space. In this Spend Matters PRO brief we take a look at both. We provide a snapshot of key Upwork information to highlight what the company actually is and what it represents in the industry vs. common industry perceptions.

For full access to this PRO content:

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Upwork Post-IPO Rising: A Next-Gen Staffing Industry Analysis

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On Oct. 3, 2018, Upwork became a public company listed on the Nasdaq exchange. Its stock was offered at $15 per share and has since been trading in the $19 to $21 range, giving it a market valuatio...

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mtkang/Adobe Stock

Amazon announced Tuesday a range of new capabilities added to Amazon Business Prime. The additions blur the line between extending the marketplace distribution aspects of the solution (e.g., same day, next day or two day fulfillment) and driving enhanced e-procurement, payment and marketplace technology components.

Spend Matters believes that this release represents the most important set of enhancements to Amazon Business since the launch of the offering.
Get the full analysis and recommendations for procurement organizations on Amazon Business' new offering: Read our related brief on Spend Matters PRO
Prior to the announcement, the Amazon team briefed Spend Matters on the news and provided a solution demonstration of some of the new components. Our take: Amazon Business Prime is not a replacement for the likes of Coupa or SAP Ariba in the upper-middle market or large enterprise customer segment for procure-to-pay, nor was it ever meant to be. But the solution is increasingly morphing into what could become a primary procurement portal for small- and middle-market customers while still offering targeted value for larger organizations - in addition to serving in its role as a business-to-business marketplace and business products distributor.

Context

In the consumer market, Amazon continues to make Prime more attractive in ways that drive an industry-high renewal rate - - compared with Costco and others, according to Bloomberg. By adding an increasingly large streaming video library (a material portion of it free) for Prime members, discounts at Whole Foods and what seem to be increasing options for same or next day delivery, Prime increasingly is delivering perceived and measurable value to consumers, or at least a subset of consumers.

Some might call this the Amazon "stickiness" factor. Now the online giant is expanding its fly paper into the B2B domain - sheets that procurement organizations are perhaps less likely to "rip out" than consumers, we'd argue. Competitive MRO providers, industrial distributors, office products and IT providers should pay close attention to how Amazon is creating an ecosystem of value for Business Prime members.

A Pivotal Release

The latest release includes a range of new capabilities that will initially support domestic (U.S.) customers. These features include added components focused on spend visibility, e-procurement (guided buying) policy and workflow, payment capabilities (including rebate and working capital solutions) and increasingly attractive shipping options.

Below, we feature a brief explanation of the capabilities from the announcement:

Spend Visibility: Powered by AWS QuickSight, Amazon's "Spend Visibility" provides advanced visualizations of company spend with out-of-the-box reporting and graphics - based on spend flowing through Amazon Business. Other buying activity is not yet captured.

Guided Buying: Guided buying enables Amazon Business account administrators to identify certain suppliers and products as preferred, as well as set specific product categories as "restricted," offering buyers greater insight into company policies or recommendations and guiding users to preferred vendors, items and pricing.

The no annual fee credit card offers flexible benefits, including the choice of 5% back or 90-day interest free payment terms for Business Prime members on United States purchases at Amazon Business, Amazon.com, Whole Foods Market and even Amazon Web Services. The AWS option seems enticing for a 5% rewards credit, but the Amazon Business Prime American Express Card: program agreement says when using the points, "minimum and maximum amounts may apply. We'll let you know about any minimum or maximum amounts, as well as any additional terms and conditions, before you use points." And the entire program terms can be changed at any time.

Extended Terms for Pay by Invoice: Business Prime members can now request extended terms for payment based on invoices. Qualifying customers can extend their payment terms to 45 or 60 days, depending on their plan, based on single or consolidated invoices provided by Amazon.

Upgraded Shipping Options: Business Prime members already receive free two-day shipping. Now, Business Prime members in the United States have the option of free same-day delivery or free one-day shipping on eligible orders over $35 in more than 8,000 cities and towns. Members also have the option to select consolidated shipping for eligible bulk orders (to minimize shipments).

To receive these benefits, an Amazon Business customer needs to enroll in Prime. The annual membership is based on the number of users on their business account: (Essentials) $179/year for up to 3 users, (Small) $499/year for up to 10 users, (Medium) $1,299/year for up to 100 users and (Enterprise) $10,099/year for over 100 users.

This announcement is generally good news for procurement and finance organizations, but there are some nuances to this program related to trade financing, flexibility to use other solution providers, and the effect of incentives of overall spend that also should be considered. For more details about the new offering and what it means for Amazon Business customers and prospects, check out our recent Spend Matters PRO analysis.

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Amazon Business Prime Is Updated to Improve Its E-Procurement Solution

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Amazon announced Tuesday a range of new capabilities added to Amazon Business Prime. The additions blur the line between extending the marketplace distribution aspects of the solution (e.g., same day, next day or two day fulfillment) and driving enhanced e-procurement, payment and marketplace technology components.

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Your Procurement team could spend hours crafting the perfect RFP questionnaire. They could take pains to ensure it's distributed to a selection of the most appealing suppliers out there. They're out of luck, however, if they can't interpret the results. Effectively scoring RFP responses is (at least) as important as constructing an effective RFP in the first place. If your team can't do it, then their effort up to that point was for nothing.

So, why do so many Procurement teams run out of luck at this stage? Chances are they're making one or more of the mistakes Brian Seipel identifies on this week's episode of the Source One Podcast.

It all begins with the right scoring methodology. Seipel suggests that finding the appropriate balance between simplicity and complexity is essential. Too many simple, true/false questions and "your suppliers will end up looking too similar." Ironically enough, a needlessly complex system can have a similar effect. A scale from 1 to 20, for example, raises questions about how suppliers can truly set themselves apart. "I'd challenge anyone," Seipel says, "to properly differentiate a score of '12' from '13.'"

Procurement teams also run into trouble when they expect too much of their participants. Just because the intent behind a question is clear to Procurement doesn't mean it'll actually resonate once its distributed. Seipel believes that every good RFP provides participants the opportunity to ask questions, gain additional context, and build their understanding. Failing to take this step means allowing an RFP to hinge on assumptions made by participants. Too many of these, Seipel remarks, "and the end result may not align at all with your requirements."

Both internal and external factors, too, can lead an organization to let bias impact its scoring process. Office politics and long-standing supplier relationships alike often lead scorers to tamper with results. In either case, the organization is left with unhelpful responses and no clear path forward.

Subscribe to the Source One Podcast today to hear the rest of the 'Unlucky 13.'

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are you making these rfp scoring mistakes?

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the strategic sourceror: are you making these rfp scoring mistakes?

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The Strategic Sourceror: Are You Making These RFP Scoring Mistakes?

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Your Procurement team could spend hours crafting the perfect RFP questionnaire. They could take pains to ensure it's distributed to a selection of the most appealing suppliers out there. They're out of luck, however, if they can't interpret the results. Effectively scoring RFP responses is (at least) as important as constructing an effective RFP in the first place.

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You don't have to know much of anything about Procurement to recognize that digital transformation is on almost everyone's mind. New terms seem to enter the conversation every day. Robotic Process Automation, Blockchain, the Internet of Things, the list goes on and on.

Organizations are most definitely believing the hype. Hackett's recent CPO survey found that nearly every respondent expects digital solutions to transform the way their organization does business before the decade is out.

They certainly have the potential to do so, but organizations are mistaken if they believe these changes will just happen. They're also wrong if they expect transformation to look the same for every organization. In reality, the precise nature of Procurement's digital transformation will vary based on the function's resources and maturity.

What could Digital Transformation mean for your company?

Whatever form they take, whatever solutions they lead your organization to embrace, digital transformations are really about one simple thing - introducing new ways to generate value. That's why organizations with purely tactical Procurement functions need to do some serious thinking before they can begin to pursue new technologies.

By allowing Procurement to reside in an obscure, tactical space these organizations are severely limiting opportunities for value generation. Before such companies can look into P2P platforms - even simple eSourcing suites - a fundamental cultural shift is in order. Leadership won't feel compelled to invest in Procurement's technology unless they've accepted the function itself as a strategic value generator. The promise of emerging tools is good fodder for building a business case, but the worst thing a Procurement unit can do here is get ahead of itself. They're ready, however, to take what is perhaps the most important step in any transformative initiative. They're ready to start changing the conversation.

Once the organization has agreed to provide for a more strategic Procurement function, then the conversation can shift to additional value a new tool might bring.

Operational

Procurement teams at this stage have earned some of the buy-in necessary to begin acting strategically. Beyond looking for the best price, they're working to identify additional sources of value and understand the total cost of every dollar spent. They've begun to do this, but they're not fully there yet. At this stage, people will still do more to inspire a digital transformation than any tool will.

In all likelihood, an Operational Procurement function is still mostly concerned with ensuring deliveries arrive on-time, suppliers remain compliant, and contracts get renewed. While they look for opportunities to boost their internal clout, they should also begin to identify tools that will expedite these processes. By adopting tools that will eliminate (or reduce) Procurement's manual workload, they can free up time to engage in more strategic initiatives.

At this stage, a large investment is likely out of the question. Luckily for Procurement, there's a wealth of low-cost tools out there for eSourcing, contract management, and spend analysis. Leveraging any of these could enable Procurement to boost its efficiency and attract additional investments.

Strategic

Strategic Procurement teams are well-positioned to take a leading role in mapping out a digital transformation. Success will depend on leveraging their internal reputation effectively. By persuasively reporting on the impact of the tools they already employ, they can begin to build an argument for more advanced technologies.

Procurement's leaders should encourage a blend of skepticism and curiosity when it comes to new solutions. After all, this could be a 'make it or break it' stage for their department. While advocating for an effective investment could solidify their position as a strategic partner, a hasty or ill-informed suggestion could lead them to lose the trust they've worked so hard to establish.

Listening is as important - if not more so - for these Procurement units as acting. By listening to industry conversations as well as stakeholder, supplier, and customer expectations, they can start to lay out a plan for well-paced and effective transformation.

Best-in-Class

This is where things start to get really interesting. A true Procurement innovator has the power and resources to stand at the vanguard when it comes to adopting emerging tools. By partnering with the right providers and cultivating the right internal environment, they could help make the speculation around digital technologies a reality.

They cannot afford, however, to forget the importance of the human element. Instead of looking for opportunities to replace existing processes and veteran employees, they should strive to encourage augmentation and evolution. Digital technologies will (eventually) change the shape of Procurement. For these organizations to see those changes through, they need to remember the importance of careful consideration and deliberate pacing.

Carrying out a successful digital transformation means navigating through the hype, honestly reflecting on Procurement's capabilities, and committing to a long-term initiative. At their most robust, these efforts are often multi-year, multi-million dollar undertakings. Even a best-in-class organization shouldn't risk going it alone. Reach out to Source One's digital transformation specialists today to learn more about what a digitized Procurement function could bring to your organization.

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the strategic sourceror: what is . . . digital transformation?

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The Strategic Sourceror: What Is . . . Digital Transformation?

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You don't have to know much of anything about Procurement to recognize that digital transformation is on almost everyone's mind. New terms seem to enter the conversation every day. Robotic Process Automation, Blockchain, the Internet of Things, the list goes on and on. Organizations are most definitely believing the hype.

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The Basware Connect event yesterday at CodeNode in the City of London had over 200 registrations and there were a good 150 delegates there on the day. As Nancy Clinton said last year (I missed that day), it is a good venue, very contemporary but not painfully "hipster", there was good networking and a relaxed but professional feel to the event.

Again, Basware blended some hard tech content, from their own folk looking at product roadmaps and developments (if you're into eInvoicing, there is some interesting stuff we should come back to in that area), and also experts such as Duncan Jones from Forrester and Magnus Bergfors from Gartner, along with some practitioner stories. That last category included a very good session from Chris Bell, Commercial Director at the City of London Corporation - we'll have another post on that to come.

But before those sessions, Louis Fernandes, Basware's UK country manager (see picture above), kicked off and defined the themes for the very forward-focused day. Science fiction is becoming science fact, he said - for instance, machines can lipread better than people. Current job roles are becoming obsolete, as we can all see.

But he is positive about the future - for instance, predictive analytics enhances human efforts, rather than replacing it. Technology will improve tactical and strategic decision-making, but humans will retain ultimate responsibility for decisions and indeed will take legal responsibility. Technology insights drive decisions, roles are redefined, and we will have a huge flow of data every day. Fernandes also described the three levels of AI-related input in what we thought was a useful manner - like this.

1. Assisted intelligence - AI supporting human decisions e.g. smart coding technologies on invoices, with AI making suggestions for coding

2. Augmented intelligence - AI working more "independently" and making recommendations for action e.g. AI identifying payment risks, fraud analysis

3. Autonomous intelligence - at this stage, we are removing tasks, and leaving them to AI. For instance, supporting workflow by analysing and routing requisitions

He also talked about the need in the new world for different skills - logic, collaboration, judgement, decision-making ... now, I'm not sure these are very different from those listed on my appraisal form when I was a young manager at Mars many years ago, to be honest, but there is no doubt the nature of many roles and the skills required will change in the digitised world.

A good start anyway, and then Rohit Talwar who we featured in one of our event previews gave a fascinating presentation on AI and business, stuffed full of content. We'll definitely be back to tell you more about that session.

That was followed by perhaps the most unusual procurement conference session I've ever attended. It was basically a 30-minute lecture, no slides, no visuals, from Mark O'Connell, author of "To Be A Machine", talking about "The Merger of Minds and Machines".

He (very dramatically) asked us to imagine having our brain removed and all the data in it transferred into a computer, then roamed through the words of St Augustine, the "revenge of the nerds", the meaning of the "fall" of Adam and Eve, beheaded corpses in a cryogenic storage facility, and (fundamentally) the philosophy of being human.

It was fascinating stuff, as he talked about the trans-humanism movement (people who believe that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of technology), and whether we will eventually "become" machines. Or are we already - are we living in "the singularity" today? That was the thought he left us with! I've got his book - available here - and perhaps we'll tell you more about his session and review the book in a couple of weeks' time when I've read it.

So, a very good day, and we'll be back with a couple of further articles on the Talwar and Bell sessions certainly. Oh yes, I spoke as well, looking at the role of "procurement" post-digitalisation, so no doubt we will return to that too at some point. And one final learning from yesterday; if you want your delegates to hang around until the very end of the agenda, then have a very enjoyable networking session, finishing the day with "pizza and prosecco" seems like a very good way to do that!

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Basware Connect - AI, eInvoicing, Pizza and Prosecco

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The Basware Connect event yesterday at CodeNode in the City of London had over 200 registrations and there were a good 150 delegates there on the day. As Nancy Clinton said last year (I missed that day), it is a good venue, very contemporary but not painfully "hipster", there was good networking and a relaxed but professional feel to the event.

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FotolEdhar/Adobe Stock

Coupa is buying Aquiire, a provider of e-procurement software that brings notable capabilities in real-time search and catalog management, for an undisclosed sum, the company announced Monday.

Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Aquiire stands out against competing e-procurement and procure-to-pay solutions for its superior front-end shopping user experience and its continued efforts to drive innovation within this segment of the procurement software market. Aquiire currently has 13 patents pending or issued - many focused on enabling real-time price comparisons and cached, localized catalog search, Coupa said in a press release.

In purchasing Aquiire, San Mateo, California-based Coupa gains not only additional modern front-end shopping capabilities - some might argue among the most advanced - but also a complement to the industry-leading catalog management technology it gained from acquiring Simeno in December 2017. The deal helps defend, both functionally and patent-wise, Coupa's lead in enabling a B2C-like user experience for all employees who touch spend, allowing them to view the most relevant purchasing options in the context of their functional activities while enabling necessary procurement controls.

"Coupa is working to put significant distance between itself and its rivals by using more modern approaches to access B2B supplier catalogs," said Xavier Olivera, director of procure-to-pay research at Spend Matters. "On the heels of buying Simeno for cached catalog search, the acquisition of Aquiire supports Coupa's strategy of delivering a consumerized B2B shopping experience using a Google-like catalog search, coupled with the compliance that businesses need."

Aquiire: Company Background

While relatively young as a brand, Aquiire has been familiar to procurement organizations for quite some time. The company is the next-generation version of Vinimaya, one of the first e-procurement vendors that attempted to help companies manage and search distributed catalog, punch-out, third-party website and related content within a B2B environment.

Aquiire launched in September 2016 as a new solution provided by Vinimaya, one that took advantage of its parent's roots in federated search, shopping and marketplace technology. Yet less than half a year later, Vinimaya changed its name to Aquiire Inc., extending both the brand and philosophy behind the new solution into the future of the company.

Whereas Vinimaya was best known in North America as a front-end user interface that helped procurement organizations get more out of their ERP or best-of-breed catalog management solutions, Aquiire competed within the broader e-procurement and P2P markets.

Aquiire's value proposition leans heavily on its ability to identify and alert users to the effects of price dispersion, an economic phenomenon that occurs when different sellers offer different prices for the same good in a given market. Aquiire's real-time search capabilities, coupled with its "punch-in" philosophy - which provides a single, integrated view of all relevant supplier and SKU information from buyer-hosted catalogs, supplier-hosted catalogs, marketplace punchouts (e.g., Amazon Business), GPOs and approved third-party e-commerce websites - allows users to find such pricing disparities automatically. Those capabilities further aid procurement organizations in their continued search for additional sources of cost savings, while also providing an additional lever for improved tail spend management.

For these reasons, Spend Matters has identified Aquiire as a top-performing solution for the Nimble and CIO-Friendly personas within the Q3 2018 E-Procurement SolutionMap. Aquiire delivers particularly high Analyst (functional) scores for catalog management and requisitioning capability, as well as customer satisfaction metrics that beat the SolutionMap benchmark generally and rank within the top tier against competitors in select areas. (See the full breakdown in our What Makes It Great column featuring Aquiire.)

For a complete review of Aquiire and its capabilities, including a full solution overview, product strengths and weaknesses, and competitive comparisons, check out our three-part Vendor Snapshot on the provider:

Transaction Rationale

The acquisition provides several benefits to Coupa, but most immediately relevant is Aquiire's ability to cement Coupa's lead as the most user-friendly e-procurement solution in the market.

Coupa's underlying philosophy is to enable end-to-end business spend management, meaning that all forms of spend, touched by any employee, can be captured and optimized through the Coupa platform. Foundational to this approach is best-in-class usability and technology adoption, and Coupa's guided buying experience is currently one of the standards by which other procurement software companies measure themselves (not to mention customers buying solutions).

Aquiire also differentiates itself on enabling a modern, B2C-like shopping experience, yet it has in select areas advantages over its acquirer. Because the Aquiire solution was designed more recently - within the last several years - it uses the latest semantic web modeling and data visualization techniques, offering innovations that even Coupa could not yet lay claim to.

One example of the latter is Aquiire's Klarity tool, which dynamically organizes real-time search results into interactive heatmaps. These visualizations translate the benefits on price dispersion into a simple suggested action, helping users to clearly see and select the best purchase option for a given search within one to two clicks.

In buying Aquiire, Coupa is shoring up its current lead in usability and guided buying, defending both against upstarts like BuyerQuest and Vroozi, which emphasize streamlined user experiences to smooth over common barriers to e-procurement adoption, and full-suite competitor SAP Ariba, which has invested heavily in improvements to its user interface and transactional purchasing capabilities in recent years, aiming to enable a true guided buying experience that rivals that of Coupa. And to this mix we also need to add Oracle, whose Fusion/Cloud solution for e-procurement is also a top functional performer in SolutionMap.

Stay tuned for more coverage on Spend Matters PRO. On Tuesday, we examined the driving strategy that convinced Coupa to pursue the transaction, along with how Aquiire's capabilities fit into that strategy. And later this week, we'll look at how the deal could affect the competitive landscape for e-procurement and procure-to-pay (P2P) technology selections for customers, prospects and partners.

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Coupa Buys Aquiire, Adding to Its Lead in Catalog Search and Front-End Shopping Usability

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Coupa is buying Aquiire, a provider of e-procurement software that brings notable capabilities in real-time search and catalog management, for an undisclosed sum, the company announced Monday. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Aquiire stands out against competing e-procurement and procure-to-pay solutions for its superior front-end shopping user experience and its continued efforts to drive innovation within this segment of the procurement software market.

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One of the discussions at eWorld recently came from Julien Nadaud, Chief Product Officer at Determine; he talked about the practical implications of AI in procurement and contract management, putting its use into real contexts. It was an interesting session, attracting a full room of delegates, in which he squarely layed out the real use cases for AI we can expect to see and how they are impacting related tasks.

He's written quite a bit on that subject by the way - some of which can be found here.

Procurement is becoming more 'intelligent' -- this we know. AI learns continuously (with machine learning at its core) using big data coupled with historical knowledge of successful outcomes. The power for procurement, says Julien, lies in the recommendations AI can make for new situations, and in replacing time-consuming jobs (like spend classification, supplier matching and contract review) and the time it frees up for tasks that add value to the process.

The use of AI in procurement really comes down to helping us make the right decisions. But there's a lot of hype around AI generally, so to prevent us from 'not seeing the wood for the trees' he maps out four headings that apply to real use cases:

Classification - We know that AI can save us money, basically because it can replace certain human tasks. In terms of classification, AI can classify items into categories in a way that wouldn't be possible without it.

Recommendation - is about anticipation, giving users the best options to choose from, be that of products, suppliers or contract types. And it does it in a speeded-up, optimised way.

Prediction - AI helps with spend prediction, price prediction, risk prediction, payment delays and so on - leading to savings, better visibility and lower risk

Conversation - is about normal discourse, the ability to have natural conversations through the likes of chatbots, which, the more you use, the more they understand.

So some ideas within these 'buckets' are:

While we can 'Google' supply chain risk, hurricane activity for example, it will not be 100% accurate and takes a lot of work. But with machine learning, those findings can be analysed, compared, and tell you if your supplier is at risk, or moving in the right direction.

When buying online, AI can tell us what we will buy next based on what other users bought together. This used to be too labour-intensive, admin, working out the relationship between products, had to configure catalogues to link items together. But AI enables this, not replacing us but making us more efficient.

Then, following a purchase, it can make suggestions and even place orders, or put together a kit ready to be added to the basket. Recurrent purchases can also be detected along with the lifecycle of the product and when it needs to be replaced.

Coming soon, we will be able to analyse every vendor. Supplier information, their activities, online catalogues, websites, their PR and social media networks, will be understood through AI, analysing our requirements and matching potential suppliers for us to source.

Data from different vendors, can be used to make correlations between price and context. For anything from paper to rubber tyres, making the right product decision at the right time with the right vendor, through AI prediction, can save time and money. If prices are going up, it can advise purchasers to wait, or buy quickly before a seasonal event - like schools buying up paper for the start of the academic year for example.

Contract data can be easily extracted - requirements, dates, specs, clauses, obligations etc. But just loading contracts is only part of the process; if the user adds valuable data, like associated suppliers, the more it can analyse, the better the results. Once all the metadata is there, AI will improve it, bringing more value. We have already learnt that in legal document review, AI outpaces lawyers.

Then there are the conversational agents, like Alexa or Cortana, capable of discussions that are far more natural than clicking on a series of apps and icons, navigating screens, searching for criteria. A smart agent can help with buying, and confirm the purchase. Could we replace the full web front-end software (and all its complexities) with a simple user interface, the smart agent - maybe?
Takeaways:
We can have more accuracy, data consistency, analysis that covers 100% of data, continuous quick learning and more detailed results.

We can have faster, almost real-time processing.

We can augment human capabilities, getting the right information to make right decisions - and share them.

We can make new savings through efficiency, processing huge amounts of data and continuously learning from it

AI is inevitable - we are generating more and more data and the only way to process it is through AI, and that will create more value. The need for data scientists - in most use cases - will diminish; teams that were expensive to use and manage will disappear. AI doesn't need the developer or the analyst. There is no need to build and maintain complex algorithms, or expert systems; the hardware to run neural networks is available now.

So will AI use AI to analyse the best model to run AI? making AI even cheaper to run and maintain.

We do note however, that as we become more dependent on data, the cleaning and processing of it is critical, or the system will learn the wrong things. And we met someone at eWorld who maintains that it is the people who are behind the classification of data that makes for real AI success - and we'll be hearing from her soon.

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The Practical Uses of AI for Procurement

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One of the discussions at eWorld recently came from Julien Nadaud, Chief Product Officer at Determine; he talked about the practical implications of AI in procurement and contract management, putting its use into real contexts.

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This four-part series focuses on why companies shouldn't focus on a Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) when making a procurement technology decision. Part one (Gartner reiterates that they do not engage in any pay-to-play activities. That is, they do not accept money to improve a vendor's standing on the MQ. This is technically true; however, it does not tell the whole story. As David Rossitar, co-founder of the How does Gartner pick their vendors for a Magic Quadrant?) discussed why some vendors you may be interested in aren't on there. In part two, we'll look at the inherent conflict of interest that Gartner has with vendors on a MQ.
Part II: Gartner doesn't do pay-to-play - at least directly
Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR), explains:

"[T]here is one big advantage to being a Gartner client. What you are buying isn't just the research, it's time with the analyst to get their insights and advice. And that is massively important.

As a vendor [who doesn't pay Gartner], I can brief an analyst perhaps four times a year. And analysts aren't supposed to provide me with any feedback during a vendor call. Gartner's advice is only available to its clients.

As a client, I can talk to my target analysts every week or so. I can find out what they see happening in the market, what they think is important, what they like about my business and what they think I should do differently.

If I'm smart, I use this feedback to build a stronger, better business. I make sure the way I position my company to Gartner reflects back what I've been told is important."

Do you want a product designed to score well on the MQ, or do you want a product that works best for your use case? While the MQ can prove useful for evaluating vendors, it should not be the only consideration. Source One can help you navigate the market, find an
Vendors cannot pay to be included on a MQ, but those that pay for Gartner's services can receive weekly feedback from the analyst who completes their industry's MQ, whereas vendors who do not pay for Gartner's services can only occasionally brief an analyst on their product, and the analyst cannot give that vendor any thoughts during their briefing.
Imagine interviewing for a position at a company. You have the option of walking into the interview knowing nothing except what is included on the job description, or you could pay to discuss the position requirements with the hiring manager half a dozen times before the interview. Technically, you are not paying to get the position, but the feedback they provide would certainly give you a leg-up against those also vying for the spot.
This is how it works with Gartner. Vendors who pay for face time with the analyst completing their sector's MQ have a better understanding of what the analyst is looking for and can better position their product to score well.
A company like Gartner could easily address this shortcoming by disclosing vendors who pay for analyst face time, but they do not. As an end-user, you have no idea which vendors have spent money in hopes of improving their MQ positioning and which have not.
ideal procurement technology vendor for your use case, and assist in a smooth onboarding of that platform.

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using gartner’s magic quadrant to find procurement technology vendors is a great way to fail at it: part 2

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the strategic sourceror: using gartner’s magic quadrant to find procurement technology vendors is a great way to fail at it: part 2

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The Strategic Sourceror: Using Gartner's Magic Quadrant to Find Procurement Technology Vendors is a Great Way to Fail at It: Part 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This four-part series focuses on why companies shouldn't focus on a Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) when making a procurement technology decision. Part one (Gartner reiterates that they do not engage in any pay-to-play activities. That is, they do not accept money to improve a vendor's standing on the MQ.

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gui yong nian/Adobe Stock

A frequent topic in procurement is how can CPOs get a seat at the chief executives' table, but finding that sweet spot with the C-suite can be elusive.

Some of the frustration comes from procurement departments and C-suites being misaligned on how to hire the best people, a study shows. And procurement veterans at a recent APICS conference said hiring talented people and developing the current staff can help with that high-level relationship.

Research done this summer for Cielo, a provider of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), talked to more than 1,100 people around the world and found that different views about how businesses hire contingent and full-time talent can be stark among stakeholders - those in the C-suite, procurement, the business side and HR.

"Whereas procurement rated 'hiring manager satisfaction' as the top success metric, human resources, business, and the C-suite preferred 'quality of hire,'" which the study defined as a company's overall hiring effort.

Even though procurement seems out of sync there, it actually wants to see quality of hire improve, the study said. In another area that the study labeled strategic, procurement and the C-suite both highly value identifying and defining metrics on hiring. So those are areas where procurement could step up efforts and help meet the chief executives' goals.

Panelists at a couple of sessions at APICS 2018 in Chicago this month stressed that, once hired, workers should manage their careers.

"Tenured employees need to continue to evolve," said Keith Connolly, vice president of AT&T's Entertainment Group supply chain. "The college degree stays current for about five years, so workers have to update skills."

Clearpath Robotics' Heather Walker, APICS' young professional board guest for 2018, said that managing her career to meet her goals actually led to her to leave a job for another opportunity. And Connolly, of AT&T, advised that businesses should have internal career paths for people so you don't lose talent.

The experts also stressed that procurement and supply chain professionals should reach out to the C-suite to ensure that the department is on its radar.

"Be courageous and be stewards of the business," said Anna Barej, McDonald's senior director of global supply chain sourcing. She said those qualities will get procurement noticed. (Although at McDonald's the word "procurement" is a no-no. Instead it's called "global strategic sourcing services," Barej said.)

When asked if her group has a seat at the C-suite table, she said, "Mostly yes, but we must maintain relationships to keep being invited."

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Procurement, C-suite Often Not on Same Page About Hiring and Development, Experts Say

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A frequent topic in procurement is how can CPOs get a seat at the chief executives' table, but finding that sweet spot with the C-suite can be elusive. Some of the frustration comes from procurement departments and C-suites being misaligned on how to hire the best people, a study shows.