Monthly Archives: July 2016

Pool4Tool: Bringing The Direct Procurement Platform — And Message — To the Masses! Part I

Hopefully you caught the recent webinar on The Direct Procurement Challenge or at least downloaded Sourcing Innovation’s recent paper on The Direct Procurement Challenge and realize that not all platforms are cut out for direct procurement. The majority of Procurement platforms were custom designed for indirect procurement and only handle those categories well.

The core issue is that direct procurement is typically much more complex than indirect procurement and requires capabilities that are not typically found in indirect platforms. As per our recent post on 5 Reasons Why You Need to Take the Direct Procurement Challenge, there are (at least) fifteen (15) capability requirements that a direct sourcing professional requires to efficiently and effectively source direct categories, and none of these are completely satisfied by indirect procurement platforms. To be more precise, nine are only partially satisfied and six are not satisfied at all.

That’s why you need the right platform, with the right capability, and an understanding of what that capability is and how to use it. Pool4Tool has been heavily focussed on educating you on the why (with the aforementioned white-paper, a two-part white-paper on The Procurement Value Engine Part I, and upcoming papers on Value-Based Sourcing and Virtual Procurement Centers of Excellence), and core capabilities to look for, so in these posts we are going to discuss the Pool4Tool platform and some key capabilities it has to support your direct procurement.

Pool4Tool has a very extensive platform with capabilities that not only span the traditional Source to Pay process, but also what we’re going to call the Procure to Produce process, as it can also manage inventory and production processes as part of its PLM capabilities. And all of this, as anyone who read the paper or attended the podcast would infer, allows everything to be done in a very supplier centric manner so that all of the needs — material composition, quality, delivery, etc. — can be evaluated in a balanced fashion against each and every supplier.

Pool4Tool capabilities can be divided into 4 (four) major buckets: Sourcing, Procurement, SRM, and SCM. Today we’re going to tackle the sourcing bucket.

Pool4Tool sourcing capability consists of standard RFX and auction capability, which is found in any e-Sourcing platform, but also includes sophisticated cost breakdown analysis and bill of materials support. A key requirement for any direct platform is bill of materials (BoM) support, and the need for BoM support is a key differentiator between indirect — where you are buying finished products for use or distribution — and direct — where you are buying dozens, if not hundreds, of raw materials and components to complete a product. Furthermore, these cannot be purchased separately or put out in separate lots as they all have to be compatible and meet rigid, interlocking, specifications in order for the product to be properly assembled and meet the quality requirements. In the Pool4Tool product, the Bill of Materials can have as many components as needed, and can be included in the cost breakdown analysis which can also include energy costs, labour, and overhead costs. This analysis can be done by product by supplier and insures that only useable bids are considered.

In addition to RFX and auction capabilities, designed for direct, it also has contract management capability. The contract management module, while not a best of breed enterprise contract management solution with deep authoring support, is just as good as the contract management capability found in the majority of sourcing platforms, and includes the capability to store and index all necessary documents required by the sourcing process, as well as search the (meta) data associated with those contracts. Finally, it also has deep catalog management capability that can store all direct, indirect, and even standard service requirements required by the company that can be used to either (insta-)buy products and services as needed or kick-off sourcing projects by populating requirements in RFX or auctions.

In Part II, we will discuss the e-Procurement and SRM capability of the Pool4Tool platform.

marketdojo Opens the Dojo to Suppliers as Well

When we last checked in on MarketDojo with our posts on how you could walk your own way and plan your own path, they were a relatively new UK company that offered a basic e-Negotiation suite with category guidance. Not much, but when you consider you could:

  • try before you had to commit to a buy with their open sandpit,
  • pay per event, on your P-card and
  • see what suppliers see with toggle view

It was a good entry point for a mid-market Procurement organization that was stuck in the Procurement dark ages and unable to obtain budget for a modern suite (because the C-suite needed to have a guaranteed ROI).

While it was a good start, MarketDojo realized that is all it is — they needed that and more to conquer the mid-market, even in their native homeland. Once a lean, agile, over-tasked, and under-resourced mid-market Procurement organization gets their hand on a tool, they want to advance fast, learn faster, and apply it fast and furious — and they want to be as effective and efficient as possible.

For many companies, this means four things:

  • minimize data re-entry
  • minimize unnecessary supplier interaction
  • track relevant documents and sourcing artifacts
  • identify suppliers with potentially innovative capabilities

That is why MarketDojo has rolled out a full-featured supplier (information) management portal, called, obviously, SIMDojo and included innovation management in their primary offering (the InnovationDojo corner).

With their new SIMDojo offering, which can be used as part of the platform or standalone, which supports supplier self-identification and self-registration, buyers can create the appropriate questionnaires, have suppliers upload the appropriate documents, and lock supplier data (from updates). When suppliers change data, their profile is invalidated until reviewed by an appropriate sourcing professional, insuring only valid and validated suppliers can be included in sourcing events. The platform is simple to use on both sides, and some customers are buying it to augment other platforms they already have.

InnovationDojo is built on the RFX/Survey functionality in MarketDojo, but allows a buyer to issue innovation challenges, collect and score responses, include that information in RFPs, and track and manage innovation projects and responses separately. It’s basic, but it works quite well for the mid-market.

MarketDojo has also made functionality and usabiity enhancements to their platforms across the board, with template management in particular being noticeably improved. With few e-Sourcing companies left serving the mid-market, MarketDojo provides a solid offering, especially to those companies without (a modern) e-Sourcing solution that need to start quick, and keep it basic (to maximize efficiency and SUM [Spend Under Management]).

Influential Sustentation 97: (Traditional) Analysts

There are a number of influential damnations, but as per our post last yer, analysts are among the worst. Why?

  • Analysts are the Gatekeepers of the Gold Seal of Approval

    Just because you have this great new product that contains at least half a dozen innovative features and functions not (yet) found in the competitors’ products, and just because you built one of the best solutions on the market, that doesn’t mean that you will even get a mention in the back pages of a local business journal until it gets a star of approval as an “emerging” solution.

  • If You’re Not on Their Lists, You’re Not on BigCo’s List

    The best way to get coverage, paid or otherwise, is to get a big win. But a big win won’t happen until a big company adopts your solution and gets a big result it wants to advertise to the world. But the chances of a big company even including you on an RFx are slim to none if you’re not on an analyst’s shortlist.

  • If You Won’t Pay to Play, You Might Never Get on the Analyst Firm’s Shortlist

    Analyst firms have two major client pools: BigCos that want to buy the best (tech) solutions and TechCos that want to supply those solutions. BigCos pay for access to the research library and analyst time and TechCos also pay for access to the research library and analyst time to help them draft an attractive roadmap. As a result, the TechCos that get the bulk of consideration are the TechCos that are (big) customers.

  • If You’re Not a Big Client, Good Luck Making the Perilous Pyramid

    Even if you happen to get the attention of the lead analyst on the research report and even if the lead analyst likes you, if your solution is too much of a threat to the research firm’s big TechCo clients good luck meeting the bulk of criteria for inclusion. Minimum revenue, core modules, absolute feature lists, etc. tend to change year to year in a manner that tends to keep big TechCo clients in and keep their biggest threats out.

So what can you do (especially if you don’t have the ability or inclination to write a cheque with a lot of zeroes)?

Be Open.

Don’t be ultra secretive. Don’t shy away from demos. And definitely don’t ask for an NDA. (Which, by the way, is really, really stupid. How can they write about you if you tie them up in an NDA?) Just like customers like a provider that is open and honest (and focussed on helping them solve their problem, not force-feeding a canned solution down their throat), so do (good) analysts.

Be Educative.

Educate them on what you do, why you do it, and why it’s important. Case studies, calculations, efficiency improvements, cost reductions, ROI(C), impact on WACC, etc. Make sure the analyst understands the value to the customer, how much comes from the uniqueness of your offering, how you will educate the customer to help them do better, and how you will continue to improve the solution.

And Be Prepared to Use the Back Door.

If the analyst in question doesn’t care about openness and education, find an analyst that covers an overlapping area in the same firm who is. Especially one that knows she needs to learn and is willing to listen. They can be your way in, and can often hold more influence over their peers than any pay check you could provide.

Synertrade – Another European P2P Vendor Expanding Westward

While this vendor was effectively unknown in North America even a year ago, Synertrade has one of the broadest, and deepest, footprints in the S2P (Source to Pay) marketplace. And it has additional functionality, like innovation management, portfolio strategy, quality management, and a centralized supplier portal not generally found in most S2P platforms.

So while you might already have a dozen vendors on your P2P evaluation list, if your organization needs a solution that goes beyond the basics, this is one that should definitely be on your short list. Why?

As discussed by the doctor and the prophet over on the recent 3-part series that appeared on Spend Matters Pro (Part I, Part II, and Part III) [membership required], it has a number of strengths, including, but not limited to:

  • ease of use
  • role orientation
  • innovation management
  • risk intelligence
  • quick data integration

In addition, Synertrade is a well established with:

  • 16 years of P2P solution history
  • over 500 global customers
  • 15 global offices on 4 continents to support an international clint base
  • strong partner support

The Synertrade platform is a set of applications integrated across business processes to support an average enterprise in the full breadth of its Source to Pay activities. The 27 modules that are currently available (with another 6 coming by year end) can not only be configured as needed to support client requirements, but can be enabled or disabled as necessary, and the workflow adjusted accordingly, to customize the experience for each client, and each employee of each client.

The Source to Contract application contains RFX, auctions, and contract management capabilities with event (tender) management. The Procure to Pay application contains catalogue management capability (which supports the webshop), basic procure to pay, as well as order tracking and inventory management. In addition, the WebShop is comparable to any other web-based catalog purchasing solution with integrated EDI catalogs, custom catalogs, and free-form requisitions and checkouts. The Supplier Management application is built around a supplier database and supports supplier self-registration, qualification and assessment, certificate and document management, quality management, and development measures. The Purchasing Intelligence application, built around a harmonized data store that integrates all data from the platform and any relevant external applications (and pre-defined spend cubes), supports standard spend analysis, performance analysis, supplier scorecard analysis, and risk analysis.

There are a number of strengths to the platform, and major strengths include:

SynerConnect

The SynerConnect tool allows them to quickly map a client’s data to a common schema that has been developed using fifteen plus years of best practice data mapping and integration. With this tool, Synertrade can integrate just about any existing system or (real-time) (market) data feed that the organization wants to integrate in a manner of hours. Even obscure ERPs, custom-built supply management systems, and discontinued database products can be integrated quickly.

Risk Intelligence

The risk intelligence piece is quite powerful as it integrates supplier scorecards with Risk Methods and Ecovadis data and allows an organization, and a buyer, to evaluate supplier risk from multiple angles — financial, geographic, product/material availability, social responsibility, etc. The standard measurements and ratings can be overridden by the clients and the reports can be customized as needed. Plus, it is built on their analytics platform, which is built on Qlikview and extensive data cubes built up over years of platform extension (and cube definition).

Material Category / Supplier Portfolio Strategy

It’s great to know how much you are spending on a category, supplier, product, service, etc. and to be able to break it down across all of these dimensions, but if you do not know what to do with this data, that’s not that helpful. The Synertrade product helps buying teams and organizations overcome this by integrating the knowledge captured in the classic Kraljic matrix and the more modern AT Kearney Procurement chessboard and based upon this and extracted measures can recommended levers and strategies for categories, suppliers, and their intersection. This is extremely useful for organizations looking for a starting point in their strategic sourcing and procurement efforts.

For a deeper dive into Synertrade strengths, a full corporate SWOT analysis, a product selection guide, and an analyst commentary, see the in-depth three part series by the doctor and the prophet over on Spend Matters Pro (Part I, Part II, and Part III) [membership required].