Category Archives: Market Intelligence

So Hip to Be Square

I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around
But I couldn’t take the punishment, and had to settle down
Now I’m playing it real straight, and yes I data share
You might think I’m crazy, but I don’t even care
Because I can tell what’s going on

It’s hip to be square
It’s hip to be square

I like my news from business suites, I get it on the ‘Net
I’m watching risk most everyday and tracking what I get
They tell me that it’s good for us, but I don’t even care
I know that it’s crazy
I know that it’s nowhere
But there is no denying that

It’s hip to be square
It’s hip to be square
It’s hip to be square
  So hip to be square

It’s not too hard to figure out, you see it everyday
And those that were the farthest up have gone the other way
You see them on the market, It don’t look like a lot of fun
But don’t you try to fight it; “An idea who’s time has come.”
Don’t tell me that I’m crazy
Don’t tell me I’m nowhere
Take it from me

It’s hip to be square
It’s hip to be square
It’s hip to be square
  So hip to be square

Here, There, and everywhere!
Hip, Hip, so hip to be square!
Here, There, and everywhere!
Hip, Hip, so hip to be square!

… and practice 3rd Party Management!

Stay Tuned! All will be explained.

Iasta: Smart Source-Style! Part II.

To the tune of Gangnam Style.

Sourcing Smart-Source Style.
Smart-Source Style.

Sourcing platform for users and bosses too. Sweet.
SaaS on the cloud, always on, real-time reporting complete. L33t.
Analyze this. Auctions, Performance. Real time data.
Optimize It. Contracts, and vendor schema.
One. Two. Smart-Source Success!

In Part I, we covered the first three significant changes to the Iasta platform since we last covered Iasta in depth on SI three years ago. Today, we cover the remaining significant changes.

Extensive Support for Third Party Data Feeds
Realizing that no analytics platform is complete without the ability to enhance the data with supplementary data that makes it meaningful (like index data for raw materials / components, inventory cost data from an ERP, services spend from a third party management [3PM] system, etc.), Iasta has developed native in-house capabilities to pull in data from a plethora of ERP/MRPs, e-Procurement/P2P systems, and third-party data feeds (like D&B, etc.) as well as custom feeds from sources you already use.

P2P Integration Capabilities
Iasta knows that the best sourcing event is all for naught if the sourcing plan, ultimately embedded in a contract, is not properly implemented and followed through and 40% of the negotiated savings leaks and goes down the drain. Thus, they have developed powerful P2P integration capabilities in-house and can suck in all of the transactional data from your e-Procurement and/or P2P systems, map it against your contracts, and let you monitor spend in near-real time as the contract progresses. This way, if the contract is being neglected, the buyer can detect that after the first or second purchase, and not three years down the road during the re-sourcing event when all of the negotiated savings have been lost due to maverick spending or dishonoured discounts and/or rebates on the part of the supplier.

Customizable Reporting and Dashboards for Users and Executives
While Iasta, like other (e-)Sourcing and (e-)Procurement providers has always had sourcing dashboards, by module and by suite, it has developed the ability for users to create their own dashboards using pre-configured reports and widgets, custom reports (which can be created by its custom reporting engine), or existing dashboard templates. Most clients don’t, choosing to have Iasta do it for them, but the extensive reporting and dashboard configuration capabilities allow Iasta to create extensive summary dashboards to meet any need or desire in a matter of hours. Buyers can see what they need to see to be most effective on a daily basis, supervisors can see what they need to see to make sure all of their buyers’ programs are progressing appropriately, and high-level executives can get their traditional 6-gage 30,000 foot view dashboard and see that everything is, or is not, under control.

A Broader Services Offering
Iasta is finding what many other software and services providers are finding, that most organizations that (still) don’t have a (modern) (e-)Sourcing platform don’t have the resources to manage one, the skills to fully apply one, or the support to acquire either. The fact that an average organization still is not hiring or putting money back in the training budget means that a new supply management software acquisition is not beneficial to an organization without vendor or third party support. Due to the lack of talent, and training, most of the advanced functionality ends up being shelf-ware unless it’s used by an appropriately knowledgeable third party. So, like BravoSolution, Iasta has extended their suite of services and are now doing as much, or more, services work than software support. In addition to being able to fully manage events, they can fully manage sourcing programs, spend analysis efforts, integrations with P2P or ERP systems, and training efforts.

Other changes include enhanced category management and sourcing pipeline management capabilities, built-in trend reporting and variance analysis, geographic reporting, enhanced project management with milestone-level tracking, and built-in supplier scorecards.

It’s an extensive suite, and exemplative of why Iasta is now a clear-leader in the e-Sourcing mid-market.


We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls!

Three Critical Operating Imperatives to Mitigate Increasing Volatility

This summer, Patrick Burnson, the Executive Editor of the Supply Chain Management Review, published a great piece on Operating Imperatives to Mitigate an Increasingly Volatile 2012 that summarized the findings of a recent Hackett Group piece on “Six Imperatives to Respond to Increasing Economic Uncertainty”.

In brief, the six imperatives were:

    • Pursue World-Class Cost Levels
      Typical companies can realize average savings of 27 percent on the delivery of their main business services functions by achieving world-class performance levels.
    • Reduce Complexity
      In finance, for example, reducing application architecture and data complexity can enable process cost reductions of nearly 50 percent.
    • Redesign Process, Governance, and Organization Models
      Adopt business process reengineering focused on an end-to-end approach for both transactional and knowledge-centric process.
    • Move from Functional Centralization to Global Business Services (GBS)
      Oranizations that migrate to a GBS model typically go through three stages of complexity, and most are still moving from stage 1 to stage 2, which is the basis for our last post where we asked how advanced your shared services really are.
    • Build a Common Integrated Technology and Information Architecture
      Hackett Group’s research confirms that the IT strategy of technology architecture rationalization is a top priority.
    • Upgrade Talent to Support Today’s New Realities

Talent is the most critical competitive differentiator today.

But as far as SI is concerned, if you really want to mitigate volatility, the three you need to focus on, in order, are:

  1. Upgrade Talent
  2. Reduce Complexity
  3. Implement Better Technology

Because if you do this, the other three factors will fall into place. Talent realizes the best way to get results is to work efficiently and effectively and will start by trying to reduce unnecessary process complexity. If you let them do this, they will be able to redesign process, governance, and organization models to better fit your organization. This will allow them to not only impelemtn better technology, but do so in an integrated fashion. Then they will be able to get consolidate views of data that will translate into decision support information that will allow them pursue world-class cost levels. In this effort, they will determine if the best results will be obtained by keeping the function in-house or moving to a GBS model. And then the new realities will be supported.

It’s ultimately all about talent, technology, and transition — and talent has to come first.

Why The Republican “Trickle Down” Platform Won’t Fix the U.S. Economy

While a recent video uploaded to Youtube on Why Obama Now didn’t do the greatest job of explaining why you should vote for Obama, it did do a great job of why you shouldn’t vote for any republican who still believes that if you lower tax cuts for the rich, the “trickle down” effect will save the economy. This is one video worth checking out for that reason alone!