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 technology platforms. Here is a short recap of some of the coverage you might have missed!

Trade Extensions

In our post on Trade Extensions (TE), where we noted that there is still no rest for the wickedly powerful, we told you that their coders never sleep (or at least not very often) and that, since SI’s last coverage in 2011, they have added more powerful fact sheets, enhanced browser-based reporting and visualization, and a formula analyzer – that pacts a much bigger punch than you’d expect. It’s often the case that a user has no clue why one model solves in a second and an almost identically sized similar model is still being processed an hour later. This is because the more complex the models get, the harder it is to pin down why they aren’t quite doing what they are supposed to be doing. The TE formula analyzer allows a user to analyze a formula and see how it is defined, how long it is taking to calculate with respect to the other formulas in the model, and what is affected by the formulas or changes to the formula. In addition, if they exist, it can suggest formula modifications that would allow the model to solve faster. However, just knowing where the problem lies is a great help if a model is solving slow.

Coupa

In our post about how it’s 24/7 for Robbie and the Coupa Factory, Part III, we noted that Coupa had completed Release 9, were on their way to finishing Release 10 (now available) by the end of the quarter, and had just released a new e-Sourcing module, which made them one of the first providers to offer an integrated end-to-end e-Sourcing and e-Procurement solution. Their new sourcing offering, which is e-Sourcing 1.0 with RFPs, RFQs, RFIs, basic reverse auctions, and basic project management and not much more than you’d find in any basic e-Sourcing suite, is still enough for an average mid-market company and impressive in that it’s as easy to use as the rest of the platform. It’s a quick way for a company using Coupa that does not have a sourcing solution to transition from Procurement to Sourcing. Plus, when you add the new expense management capabilities and catalog functionality, it’s a very quick way for a mid-market organization behind the sourcing and procurement curve to get closer to where they need to be quickly.

Kinaxis

In our posts about Kinaxis and their new paradigm for real-time end-to-end supply chain management (Part I, Part II, and Part III), we described how this extremely unique Supply Management vendor offers a single platform to take your Supply Management Operations to the next level once you have implemented e-Procurement and put your spend under management, optimized your strategic sourcing, mastered e-Transportation and Trade Management, achieved e-Visibility to manage your risk, and optimized your network design. This platform, which is successfully used by product, risk, and change managers in Supply Management to manage demand, do S&OP, undertake supply & capacity planning, do production benchmarking and scheduling, manage inventory, handle new product introduction (NPI), perform order analysis and planning, manage supply, improve profitability, and collaborate with suppliers, among other things, is designed to allow supply management professionals to get answers to strategic planning questions like the following in real time:

• what is the impact of a supplier shutdown due to a fire in the plant?
• how can I launch a new product a quarter early?
• what if a user mistakenly changes an inventory parameter?
• what would happen to our ability to fulfill demand to our other customers if we accelerate fulfilment of an emergency order for a preferred customer?
• how can we effectively reengineer our planning processes

The Kinaxis solution supports very complex, but easily generated, what-if scenarios that will allow a user to ask these questions and get an answer in a few hours, as compared to the days, or weeks, it would have taken them in the past.

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