Daily Archives: September 5, 2013

While You Were on Summer Vacation, Vendor Posts, Part I

While you were on summer vacation, SI was powering away with daily posts and continuing to cover some of the leading vendors in the space, presenting a number of deep dives on their respective technology platforms. Here is a short recap of some of the coverage you might have missed!

Ecovadis-Powered E-TASC

In our post on Ecovadis-Powered E-TASC, we reported that Ecovadis is now powering the new, and greatly improved, version of the Electronic Tool for Accountable Supply Chains. Launched by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GESI), the new platform had over 20 ITC companies and over 1000 ICT suppliers registered, subscribed, and deployed within a month and, according to the E-TASC site, now has over 1,400 facilities in the system. By (re)launching on Ecovadis, a buyer has immediate access to deep sustainability, business practice, labour practice, human rights, and environmental assessments in one comprehensive, audited, third party verified report. (More information on Ecovadis can be found in this classic SI post on how they are Ecovating the Globe.)

Nipendo

In our posts on Nipendo, which is Bringing O2P and P2P to the Mainstream and Streamlined Invoice Management for Even the Largest Organization, we noted how Nipendo, a provider of order-to-payment automation software, recently released a new version of its order-to-payment (O2P) platform that includes automated rules-based end-to-end invoice reconciliation — which also supports automatic data normalization, completion, and matching — that allows even the largest Global 3000 to not only reach the point where 98%+ of invoices are processed electronically, but where 90%+ are processed without human intervention. Their largest customer reached this point within two years, and their average customer sees over 80% of invoices being processed electronically within one year due to Nipendo’s multi-faceted supplier onboarding process. Realizing that the necessary data is going to come from a variety of systems, Nipendo integrates with all the major ERP vendors, a large number of third party supply management platforms, and provides suppliers with a number of options to submit invoices, including a web-portal and a print-to-cloud solution that allows a supplier to install a plug-in that will allow them to print their invoice from their billing system directly into the Nipendo platform.

Fieldglass

In our post about Fieldglass, and how they are adapting to every contingency (Part I, Part II, and Part III), we noted how Fieldglass has been hard at work evolving their platform since SI last covered them in 2010 and, in addition to improving its rate guidance and extending its rate structure capability, has streamlined its job posting capability, implemented e-mail approvals, developed an “Ask- An-Expert” recommendation engine, built a powerful timesheet manager, and added extensive Statement of Work Support. The rate structure capability is one of the hidden gems of the platform. With deployments in over 80 countries, Fieldglass has a deep insight into the many varied, complex, and strange rate structures around the world that can include per diems, special bonuses, hazard and isolation pay, vacation pay, etc., with each component separately (not) taxable by multiple state (and federal) agencies – and has built a platform with enough flexibility and configurability to handle it all. Another hidden gem is e-mail approvals. While very simple in theory, and relatively simple in implementation, this simple functionality reduced the cycle time to fill a position by 66% in the customers that implemented it! And the timesheet and Statement of Work modules are just cool.

Come back tomorrow and we’ll tell you about three more recently covered companies you might have missed!