Category Archives: Vendor Review

Statess Wants to Stabilize Your State of Flux Part II

In our last post we introduced you to Statess, a relatively unknown solution provider in the SRM space on this side of the pond even though they were conceived from State of Flux who have been producing leading SRM research reports for six years, in business for eleven, and are a leading provider of SRM consulting in the UK.

We discussed how they offer a SRM suite focussed on performance, contracts, risk, innovation, relationship, and sustainability management with over fifty sub-modules that address dozens of facets of performance, risk, and relationship management. We also noted how the platform could, if needed, be used for category management in addition to contract management, CSR management, and even the management of overall supplier development programmes.

The first thing to note about the Statess SRM platform was that it was designed to be modular, flexible, and adaptable. This means an organization can not only choose only the functionality that they want from such a platform, but can configure it how they want and even customize the terminology used in the UI. Even if an organization could use all of the functionality, sometimes a staged roll-out with limited functionality is best at first as this allows training to be focussed and prevents users from getting overwhelmed and avoiding the system. (And if the organization has systems with some of the functionality and wishes to keep using those existing systems, disabling duplicate functionality makes sure that the users don’t get confused.)

The next thing to note is that this web-based platform is highly configurable. Not only can the user define and customize reporting dashboards, as one would expect from any modern tool, but the user can design and customize their home page and the view for the entry point to every module they have access to. Basically, not only do all reports have overview widgets, but all action types have summary widgets, particular to what the user can see and do, that can be shown or hidden, rearranged as the user sees fit, and customized from a look-and-feel perspective. This allows the user to create a page that focusses on upcoming and overdue actions, quick access to artifacts (such as contracts, audits, certifications, etc.) stored in the system that they need to review on a regular basis, and entry points for key tasks that the user performs on a regular basis instead of just a shiny dangerous and deadly dashboard (which is where most systems stop).

After this, the next most important thing to note is that the user can create views from both an organizational perspective and a supplier perspective. The latter allows them to focus on a 360-degree view of a single supplier, as opposed to just an organizational view from a performance, relationship, or contract perspective and even replicate what the supplier will see based on what information they choose to share (with the supplier). Furthermore, from this view they can create or access any data or system artifact that relates to the supplier, regardless of the module it lives in as well as initiate new survey, innovation, or development programmes. The system maintains the necessary multidimensional relationships between the different data elements to enable the buyer to rapidly configure and access multiple views. Just like the best insights in a spend analysis project often come from looking at the data in unconventional ways, the best insights into supplier performance and, most importantly, development opportunities often come from looking at the supplier (data) from multiple perspectives. Statess realized this and built a tool that could support these multiple perspectives.

And the last point we are going to note in this post is that the platform, while quite extensive, is still looked upon as an early stage solution and is being actively, and aggressively, developed and more (and deeper) functionality will materialize over time, as well as more integrations to third party systems and data sources to shorten the average implementation timeframe and progress towards even more of an “out of the box” solution.

In our third, and final post in this initial series on Statess, we’ll overview some of the key capabilities of a few key modules.

Statess Wants to Stabilize Your State of Flux (Part I)

These days an average organization has a lot of uncertainty to deal with as a result of sustainability, regulatory, and risk headaches that plague it on a daily basis. These headaches range from paperwork headaches to regulatory migraines to minor delivery hiccups to major supply chain disruptions depending on whether an import form wasn’t received on time, certification requirements for key personnel were not completed, a strike erupted at a major port, or an earthquake destroyed a major production plant.

However, that uncertainty can be reduced with good planning, monitoring, and execution. Somewhat ironically, achieving this requires proper planning to identify the right processes and technologies that can be used to not only monitor the supply chain for events that can cause disruptions, but create mitigation and continuity plans that can be executed at the right time. And while it’s not always easy to identify the best processes, it’s a bit easier to identify the right kind of technologies. An organization that wants to reduce uncertainty needs to implement systems that monitor for events outside of its control that could increase its organizational risk and cause unexpected disruptions and it needs to implement systems that monitor for issues inside of its control that, if left unchecked, could increase risk or decrease effectiveness. One of the most important systems in this latter category is a SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) system because an organization’s suppliers, that often are the recipients of up to 80% of organizational spend, represent one of the biggest known, and manageable risks, to the organization.

While SRM solutions aren’t new, new SRM solutions are still being developed, and one such SRM solution that you likely haven’t heard of that could meet your organization’s needs is Statess. Although it’s a relatively new solution, it’s quite mature for its age as, unlike many solutions that first hit the market, it was not developed by a new software company but originally conceived of over six years ago by State of Flux, a mature, eleven year old provider of Supplier Management consulting, training, and research services (that recently rebranded their technology division as Statess). Even though you may never have heard of them, as they are on the other side of the pond, State of Flux is a leader in best practices and thought leadership for Supplier Management, and has been producing the Global SRM Research Report for the last six years. That’s longer than a number of self-proclaimed industry leading research firms on this side of the pond have been around!

As a result of this research, and the consulting they did for their clients, they not only quickly realized the need for a proper tool to manage supplier relationships, but realized that if the tool was not designed to streamline the common operations and adapt to the organization’s needs, it would not be effective. Based on this, they set out to design a tool that would work for the average organization it served and not end up as another piece of shelfware. Such a tool would not only have to help manage relationships and performance, enforce compliance, and mitigate risk, but also promote supplier development, allow for cross-organizational team collaboration, and, most importantly, go beyond just management to encourage true supplier innovation. In addition, depending on organizational need, the platform may need to support and manage contracts and categories, address sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and manage overall supplier development programmes.

It’s a pretty tall order, but the new Statess supplier management platform meets the bill with core modules for relationship management, performance management, contracts management, risk management, innovation management, and sustainability with over 50 uniquely defined sub-modules that address different aspects of contracts, performance, risk, innovation, and relationships.

In our next post we will begin to discuss the capabilities of the solution in detail and how it addresses each of these core issues.

Integration Point: A Global Content Provider

When we last covered Integration Point (in 2008 and 2010), we discussed their solutions for customs, security, and product classification; for free / secure trade zones and for regulatory compliance.

We talked about how their SaaS solutions helped companies with product classification under HS codes, advance notification (as required by 10+2), denied party screening (through integration with the US denied party lists), free trade / special economic zones (and identification of associated agreements), and the creation of necessary documents as well as the creation of surveys to determine if the supply base was compliant.

It was a good all-around solution, but it wasn’t a one-stop shop. While the import and export management solutions were extensive, the supply chain compliance solutions were limited; free trade was primarily ECCN, entry visibility, and country of origin; there was no automatic HS or country of origin classification; and content was primarily limited to HS/HTS codes, common import documentation, custom compliance documentation, and FTA summaries.

However, recognizing that their entire solution was dependent on good content, Integration Point, which now has twenty (20) offices across six (6) continents (and which promises an Antartica office as soon as the penguins start trading), started working on a Content Repository ten years ago and over the last decade has grown that content repository into a Global Content Repository with relevant trade data for over 185 countries. This include HS Codes, Tariff Schedules, Import/Export documentation requirements, rulings, free trade agreements, free trade and special economic zones, customs compliance programs, denied parties, sanctions and embargoes, and relevant trade acts, such as Lacey. The repository, which is maintained by a team of over 200 people globally, contains millions of base documents and millions of codings and mappings and is updated daily.

Daily updates is a critical part of a trade content repository. While some countries only update their tariff schedules a few times a year, others update their schedules monthly, and some update their schedules weekly (or more as Brazil once updated its schedules 80 times in one year). In addition, as trade relations improve or break down between countries, new trade restrictions / sanctions / embargoes are created almost overnight, denied parties get added to the list daily, and new regulations and rulings also come out on a daily basis. Correct classification, coding, and documentation is the difference between trouble-free trade and having your shipment held up for days, weeks, or months. And not shipping a restricted product to a denied party is the difference between smooth sailing and being federally investigated and fined millions of dollars. In both cases, your logistics and trade managers can only insure properly documented, legal, trade if they are on the ball with up-to-date data.

Since Integration Point has a global team, Integration Point, which sells access to its content repository as well as its trade management solutions on a subscription basis, is able to keep its repository current, which is no mean feat considering there have been over 2M updates to HS classifications alone on a global basis so far this year and over 1M updates to the import / export document database were required to capture regulation updates, trade agreement updates, form updates, and new rulings.

Integration Point now has one of the best and most complete Global Content Solutions out there and should be included in your list of content solution providers as you endeavour to get your compliance under control because Content is a Cornerstone of Compliance.

Plus, based on this content, Integration Point is now able to offer innovative solutions around country of origin determination, product classification, tariff analysis, and supply chain costing. We will cover these in future posts in early 2015.

LogicSource OneMarket – An Interesting Solution for Sourcing Projects

LogicSource OneMarket, which grew out of a unique automated procure-to-play platform to enable buyers and suppliers to more effectively address the complexities of print management, is a unique platform for sourcing “projects”. Marketing and advertising projects, capital equipment and leasehold acquisition projects, temporary labour projects to meet the holiday rush, etc. The developers — having recognized how the pre-cursor complex category platform they developed to specifically handle complex categories such as direct mail promotions, marketing collateral, promotional items, and packaging was being used across a wide range of industries — also recognized that what made these categories complex was the project-based nature of the categories, and focussed on extending that.

A few years later and they have a distinct platform that, while not specific to marketing, capital acquisitions, or labour projects, is well suited for those types of one-off sourcing events. While the platform has four components — the main e-Procurement (Sourcing) Engine, the Analytics Platform (designed for Finance), Digital Asset Management (designed for Marketing), and Visual Merchandising Management (designed for Operations) — we’re only going to discuss the e-Procurement / Sourcing component in this post.

The module is built around “campaign” management, and that’s why it is effective in special projects that are essentially campaigns to get something specific, and special, accomplished like managing a print advertising campaign for a new product, acquiring a new office building that meets everyone’s needs*, or quickly hiring 100 new workers to staff the warehouse to get all the packages out on time for the holiday rush.

Campaigns are much more challenging than regular commodity/product/service sourcing projects where you can just send out a bid for a group of SKUs, ask carriers to quote on lanes, and request standard rate cards for well defined service roles, as you need to develop customize requirements and RFIs, allow for and handle highly variable RFPs depending on the solution proposed by each vendor, compare bids at different levels of granularity, support complex review and sign-off chains, and capture the data required for detailed Statement-of-Work addendums to the contracts that can be used to generate the appropriate POs for whatever billing framework and schedule is agreed to.

To support this type of special project, each campaign starts with a specification where the buyer defines what they are looking for to the best of their ability, defines the workflow, selects the initial suppliers, includes any known products they need (quoted) from the built-in catalog capability, and/or defines any services they need (quoted) and attaches the rate cards they need filled out. The buyer can also choose to automatically populate the RFPs sent to suppliers with known or historical prices for known product or service needs, which then requires the supplier to only provide updates where necessary and fill in prices for products or services not known to the buyer.

Special projects can have multiple RFX rounds and the product logs all steps and changes for historical audit purposes. When the project is complete, an award can be created and, if necessary, split across multiple suppliers at different levels of project granularity. For example, if it was an advertising campaign project, one supplier might get a region (southern), another might get a state (California), and another might simply get a city (such as New York) because of distinct consumer preferences in a large target marketplace.

Once the award is made, the tool can be used to track project progress and handle the traditional billing and payment cycles (which you would expect as it evolved from an e-Procurement platform). In addition, it can track all change orders and everything related to project management is integrated, logged, and audited. In addition, suppliers can generate invoices within the supplier portal against work orders at agreed upon payment schedules for milestone driven projects, which makes it a lot easier for payment review and approval then when a supplier sends AP an invoice for “Services Delivered Against Campaign X” and the accounts payable clerk has no clue if the milestone has been hit or not.

LogicSource OneMarket is a fairly unique solution that is worth checking out if your organization does a lot of campaign-based projects across disciplines and your standard sourcing suite doesn’t suit the purpose. Keep it in mind the next time you hit a brick wall with respect to campaign management in your previous-generation sourcing suite.

*but not everyone’s wants — because, as poor Dilbert found out in the “Tower of Babel”, Episode 7 of Season 1 of the animated TV Show, if you try to satisfy everyone, you satisfy no one.

marketdojo – A Dojo Where You Can Plan your Own Path

In our last post, we introduced you to marketdojo, a state-of-the-art do-it-yourself e-Negotiation suite that supports complex RFX and e-Auction events as well as integration with their categorydojo product that helps a user determine appropriate sourcing strategies for each category and prioritize those categories based on the expected size of the opportunity.

In yesterday’s post, we described their basic marketdojo product which consists of an RFX and e-Auction offering (which supports multiple RFX types and Auctions). Today we are going to discuss their categorydojo product, which is one of the two real differentiators between them and the other players targeting the low-end of the e-Sourcing market (in an effort to bring smaller companies out of the Purchasing Dark Ages where some still remain).

A lot of consulting firms have been doing the category analysis that categorydojo has been doing for years, and a few companies have even built simple opportunity analysis tools to help you figure out how what opportunities you should be chasing, but the doctor has yet to see any tool that is as clean, streamlined, and useable by an average buyer without a lot of training or consultation. This is one of the two real differentiators that marketdojo has built and one of the two features that actually impressed the doctor, which is not easy to do if you are yet another e-Sourcing or e-Procurement provider considering the dozens upon dozens of tools he’s seen over the last fifteen years. Basic suites are commodities now, and the most basic suites are free.

Once you’ve activated marketdojo, giving categorydojo a spin is as simple as going to categorydojo, clicking on the Dashboard link at the top of the page, and activating it.

Once it’s going, you create a spend portfolio (by selecting the Create Portfolio option) where you define your top categories, and then go through a wizard-driven Q&A about each category to help the expert system underneath properly classify and rate your category. Category creation can be as simple as category name, currency, average annual spend, and a notation on whether or not the spend is subject to EU Procurement Directives (if you are in the public sector). Then you define subcategories, their component spend, expected spend trends, and contract term. Then you define your perception of market conditions and bid complexity and you’re off to the races. Once you’re done, the tool presents you with a recommended sourcing strategy, which in the marketdojo suite, is initial RFI (because it’s not ready for a market event or a market event is not expected to be successful at this time), RFP (because it’s not auction appropriate), RFQ and standard e-Auction, or RFQ and Reverse Japanese Auction — and charts it on a quadrant graph relative to your other categories.

Then, once you have defined a set of categories, you can deep dive in and see the relative spend vs complexity for each category, the time vs. return, and most importantly, the power balance for each category and what it means to your organization and the expected savings. The founders, with a long history in sourcing, built up a knowledge base on different categories and expected savings targets and built this in to the evaluation from day one. Then, upon product launch, they made sure that categorydojo was integrated with marketdojo so a buyer could push an award back after an event was run so the award, and the savings, could be evaluated against the expected savings. This result was used to tune the models over time to the point that a buyer can have confidence that, at least 9 times out of 10, the available savings is within the range predicted by the tool (if the market conditions have been accurately captured and the suggested strategic approach is taken). I’ve seen the reports (which, by the way, do require a paid license), and, for every category I’m familiar with, the range is a realistic savings range for a company that hasn’t properly sourced that category before.

Finally, once you have all of the spend categories defined, and have worked your way through the reports, the tool lets you prioritize the categories so that you can build an effective sourcing plan for the year.

The tool is well done and easy enough for any buyer to use without a £5K a day senior consultant from a Big 6 consultancy! (Which means that the tool, which only costs £1000 per user per year, pays for itself as soon as you use it because each category analysis from a Big 6 will cost you at least £5000, and that buys an unlimited one user license of marketdojo for a month, which will help you realize your organization’s savings potential!)

If you’re at the lower end of the mid-market and in need of a (better) e-Sourcing tool, I would strongly suggest that you check the marketdojo out. Even though they have a few clients in the higher end of the mid-market, they are really designed for the low-end, and they fit very nicely there.