Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past ten days you will have noticed that Ardent Partners — a research firm that has traditionally focussed on Contract Management, Accounts Payables/Invoice Management/e-Payables, Contingent Workforce, and CPO Advisory — stepped up their game when they hired Magnus Bergfors as VP of Research. Magnus, a former Gartner and Spend Matters analyst, possesses deep expertise on the Source-to-Contract side of the S2P equation, especially around Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management, and the front-end of e-Procurement. With the addition of Magnus, Ardent Partners can now truly cover the Source-to-Pay spectrum.

Even though they only have three (3) senior analysts, at the very least, given the slew of departures from Gartner over the past few years and the key retirement at Forrester, Ardent Partners can now go head-to-head with these firms in confidence and possibly be more valuable to their clients than those firms. While the doctor doesn’t expect that they will be able to introduce a new market map (or even want to try given the technology dominance of the Spend Matters map), as every up-and-coming market firm is want to do these days, he does expect that, given the vast network of CPOs they have built up, Magnus will be able to draw out some fairly interesting insights from that group. Likely deep insight into the typical technology landscape, average Procurement department proficiency, key concerns of today’s CPOs, and so on.

But the question is, how will Ardent Partners make use of that knowledge, how will their clients, and what will Magnus do to disrupt the space in his new role? the doctor will be watching.  In the mean time, the doctor suggests keeping an eye on Magnificent Magnus Mondays for some hints into what might be coming.