That’s a very hard question and, to some extent the key elements will, at least in many views, revolve around what you are looking for the platform to support, but there are some elements that should be part of your S2P platform regardless of where your solution focus is.

What are they?  Where can you find some hints?  For starters, you can loo to the new version of Solution Maps, designed by the doctor, with initial results releasing in less than two months, which have refactored all of the maps to have a new Common platform section (as well as a new common section for Sourcing – SXM due to the large overlap between the requirements and today’s platforms) which focuses on areas that are critical to S2P success regardless of your focus. 

This new Common section is broken down into five categories

Analytics
Configurability
Supplier Portal
Foundational SXM
Technology

And they key requirements for any platform can be found in these four categories

Analytics
Technology
Configurability
Supplier Portal

Let’s start with analytics.  This has four sub-categories, all of which are vital:

Data Schema

  As today’s information economy runs on data.  Big data.

Data Management

  As this data is constantly expanding and changing.

Metric Management

  As you can’t manage what you can’t measure

Reporting

  As we need to extract the data we need to do our jobs.

Now let’s look at technology.  Each of the seven sub-categories it contains are vital:

Data Management Support

  Which looks at foundational technology requirements to handle the data needs of today and tomorrow

Document Management Support

  Which looks at the additional technology required for document management (as the business world runs on documents and contracts)

Core Platform 

  Which looks at the architecture and software stack designed to support an evolving system

Automation

  As efficiency is about automation, usually accomplished by RPA and, in some cases, assisted intelligence (the first level of AI, which is where most companies are)

Standards and Integration

  As one platform can’t do it all.  Just like the internet does not support the One Ping. 

Emerging Technology Support

  As platforms must keep up

UX Layer

  As the platform must be usable. By the average user, not just the PhD with years of esoteric knowledge. 

Tomorrow we’ll outline the other categories and then in future posts we’ll dive into some of these key areas and define what they might mean in plain English. 

Stay tuned.