Category Archives: Vendor Review

Do You Know What’s At Risk? Resilinc Does!

Resilinc, a new player in Supply Management, has a unique approach to identifying and evaluating risk in your supply chain. Eschewing the transaction-and-finance focussed approach of other players in the risk management space, and building on the lessons learned from SIM (Supplier Information Management) vendors, Resilinc has built a unique approach to identifying and quantifying the relative risks in your supply chain.

Started by a Risk Management practitioner in the high-tech and electronics supply chain, who has a Masters in Engineering in Logistics (from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Resilinc not only builds on the lessons learned from SIM, but on the lessons learned from real risk management practitioners and specifically focusses on the electronics and high-tech, medical device, and automotive supply chain – realizing that, when it comes to risk, not all supply chains are created equal.

So what is Resilinc? It’s an affordable DSS (Decision Support System) for larger mid-size and large multi-nationals that need to

  1. identify the most significant risks in their supply chain,
  2. keep tabs on what facilities may be impacted by a significant external event, and
  3. be immediately informed when an event could cause a disruption that requires immediate action.

The solution, delivered using the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model, does this by tracking all of the relevant information on each supplier and facility in your organization’s multi-tier supply chain. Whereas a typical SIM solution (that powers a typical financial risk analysis product) will track each supplier, their official information, their insurance certifications, their corporate addresses, etc., Resilinc’s solution tracks each individual manufacturing facility, the products produced at those facilities, the inputs required, the lead times required, and the time taken to get the plant up and running again as a result of a serious disruption (such as a natural disaster, border blockade, strike, etc.). Based on this information, integrated financial and location risk metrics imported from other systems (for which you have a license for), and the relative revenue impact of each product on your total organization revenue, Resilinc is then able to

  1. provide an overall risk score, delivered in terms of the revenue impact of a disruption, for each location and product,
  2. give you the ability to determine the impact of an external event in a given location with respect to supplier locations and sourced products, and
  3. determine which locations and products are likely to be impacted by a significant event anywhere in the world, as soon as it happens (and e-mail you a notice that the event — which may be an earthquake, war, or labour strike — is potentially impacting one or more locations in your supply chain).

Risk Managers can use this to determine which locations and products have the biggest risks, which facilities will be impacted the most as a result of a supply disruption in an area, and which product (line)s are at risk as the result of an event that just happened. And then they can take action.

Resilinc is a powerful tool for the high-tech, medical device, and automotive supply chain, which, until now, were probably too reliant on financial metrics, which are not the only risks one needs to be concerned about in a multi-tier supply chain.

Wallmedien: A New Option for North American MultiNationals to Eke Procurement Value out of their ERP

Last week we noted that if you were stuck with an ERP, you do have options! Specifically, we noted that you could acquire a best-of-breed solution that runs on your ERP backbone to automate and enhance Procurement in ways that ERP never dreamed of (and will likely never aspire to) and extract the value that your smaller competitors, not locked into an ERP, are extracting with the big names in stand-alone best-of-breed Procurement, which, with the recent SAP acquisition of Ariba, now include relative newcomers (to this side of the Atlantic) like Coupa, iValua, and GEP (which was formerly Global eProcure and which acquired Enporion).

In addition to the traditional, known options of (CC-)Hubwoo and Capgemini’s IBX, you have a European player by the name of Wallmedien which has been around for fifteen (15) years, has over one hundred (100) customers (with dozens of big names including Johnson Controls, Continental Tire, Syngenta, Ford, Alstom, Bayer, BASF, and Alcoa), has offices on three continents, has enabled over sixty thousand (60K) suppliers globally, and, most importantly, has rolled out their solution in twenty-six (26) languages across forty-five (45) countries! In the sourcing and procurement world, this last feat is rare and somewhat astounding when you consider most of the smaller companies still haven’t hit double digits in the language metric.

Wallmedien has a powerful Procurement Automation Suite that includes all of the standard features in a new, consumer-inspired, easy-to-use cart-based UI which allows for easy catalog-based purchasing (whether it be through EDI, cXML, or a custom database), punch-out to a supplier’s online store, and services procurement as well as straight forward RFX capability which can be used with our without their private supplier network portal. Their portal is a standard web-based supplier interface that allows for easy supplier communication and document exchange. And it all runs seamlessly on top of SAP, with or without SAP SRM, and Oracle (although most of their customers are currently SAP, as that is the ERP platform they cut their teeth on).

And like BravoSolution, which is rapidly becoming a global best-of-breed leader in (e-)Sourcing, especially now that IBM has scooped up Emptoris, Wallmedien backs all this up with an extensive suite of end-to-end services that cover implementation, integration, hosting, catalog and application management, benchmarking, and, most importantly, a wide-range of consulting services including process improvement, technical backbone improvement, sourcing integration, and getting the most from your SAP (SRM) (or Oracle) ERP implementation.

And the new North American team of Wallmedien consists of the market leaders who previously brought you ground-breaking sourcing and procurement innovation at GE, TPN Register, B2EMarkets, VerticalNet, and Vinimaya … just to name a few. This company is going to become a force to be reckoned with in the global procurement space, especially since their platform works just as well if you don’t have SAP and they have pretty much been-there, done-that where all of the international (e-)procurement headaches are concerned. Keep your eye on ’em. On this side of the ocean, they’re movin’ on up.

BizSlate, an ERP for the Small to Mid-Size Distributor

If you’re a small to mid-size distributor, with revenues under 100 M who is still running on QuickBooks (or even Microsoft dynamics), BizSlate is an ERP solution that you should be looking at — right now! BizSlate is doing for small-and-midsize distributors what Compiere and Made2Manage, are doing for small-and-midsize manufacturers — bringing usable, affordable ERP with exceptional supply chain support to the masses. And even though the official release of V1 doesn’t come out until Q4, BizSlate is already approaching two dozen distributors who are already using the solution, almost a dozen of which pre-paid for it over a year ago to be part of the usability design team.

With the sheer amount of data an organization needs to keep track of these days from an e-procurement, e-sourcing, spend analysis, risk management, and compliance perspective, it’s almost impossible for an organization with more than 10 Million in revenue to do without an ERP, but given that the annual total cost of the big ERPs still end up being in the seven figure range once implementation, training, maintenance, and infrastructure are factored in, these solutions are not affordable for the average small or mid-sized business. And while there are a number of SaaS best-of-breed solutions in each of the aforementioned supply management areas (like Coupa, iValua, Iasta, BravoSolution, BIQ, SupplierSoft, Vendormate, Lavante, etc.) that will allow an organization to collect and retain all relevant data, this data still needs to get into a centralized data store for inventory, warehouse, and logistics management; accounting; and spend analysis — a central data store that should probably take the form of an ERP solution. (And we recently pointed out how best of breed on an ERP backbone provides the best of both worlds.)

But not any ERP will do if you’re a small to mid-sized distributor. It has to be lightweight (as small to mid-size organizations don’t have the needs of large multi-nationals), SaaS (as they don’t have the IT departments either), low-cost (as they also don’t have large software budgets), and come in default configurations appropriate for distributors in different verticals (apparel, food & beverage, pre-manufactured components, etc.). And while Compiere and Made2Manage do well in the manufacturing world, and for the distributors who handle manufactured components and electronics, it can require some consulting and effort to customize them for apparel and food and beverage distributors, especially for certain organizations with certain processes.

Enter BizSlate. Before they spun it off from Ezcom software, the founders of BizSlate — who were focussed on low-cost EDI solutions for retailers — noticed the lack of appropriate ERP support for the small and mid-sized retail and distribution space, and decided to do something about it. Over the past year, they have designed a new SaaS-based ERP from the ground-up that addresses the everyday accounting, inventory, catalog management, and order management / e-procurement requirements of small and mid-sized distributors through a simple web-interface that is as easy to use as most of the new SaaS enterprise e-Procurement systems on the market. And they did it with the unique needs of the retail distribution space in mind.

The importance of their focus on the retail space, and the apparel space in particular, cannot be overlooked. In this space (as in food and beverage, but to a much greater extreme), it is generally the case that each distinct instance of a product (which is often a combination of colour, size, and style) needs to be its own line item and have its own SKU. As a result, setting up a clothing line in a traditional ERP system can often require days of manual entry as a user often has to create up to 100 products just to handle one shirt (10 sizes * 5 colours * 2 styles). If an average clothing line contains six shirts, two sweaters, four pants, three jackets, etc., and four new clothing lines are being carried, it is easy to see how thousands of new product records might need to be created in a traditional ERP, making the data entry so egregious that the ERP is almost unusable. In BizSlate, an administrator can batch-create new products simply by entering all the base product information and then defining the characteristics that define different instances and the set of values for each characteristic. A user can create hundreds of combinations in a matter of minutes.

In addition, they also looked at how orders were created and came up with bulk order template functionality that allows a user to quickly generate an order form for a product group, with a line for each instance of each product in the group, and a default order quantity for each group, or product. As a result, a user can generate an initial start-of-season order in a matter of minutes as all the user will have to do is change a few order quantities.

And this focus on process support is not limited to product and order creation. They also looked at the inventory management and accounting processes and made each step as easy as they could for the average user, focussing on collecting only the information that is required and only when it is required. The entire goal of the design is to keep the user out of the system as much as possible as success in this space depends on selling and generating orders, and then optimizing the inventory levels and logistics, not on mucking around with an ERP or trying to optimize pennies when the volume doesn’t exist to achieve FTL discounts from a big carrier.

As they are only in the process of releasing V1, there are still a few week areas, such as reporting which is limited to canned reports and accounting which only supports GL integration with QuickBooks, but even the functionality in these areas supports 80% to 90% of the needs of a typical distributor in retail or a related channel. V2, slated for Q2 next year, will have a fully integrated report writer, a (punch-out enabled) shopping cart, and support for carrier integration. But from an efficiency perspective, which was their goal, they’ve hit the nail on the head. The manpower savings alone will more than pay for the solution, and the value that a company will be able to generate through even the most basic spend analysis effort after deploying the solution for a year will be substantial.

In summary, if you are a small to mid-sized distributor, with revenues under 100M, in a retail vertical, and you don’t have an ERP, BizSlate is one company that you have to check out. They’re on the right track, and once you have your data in a centralized data store, bolting on a best-of-breed e-Sourcing or Spend Analysis engine will be a breeze, and your savings will multiply. (And yes, the doctor hasn’t been this impressed with an ERP effort since the early days of Compiere.)

Robbie and the Coupa Factory

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do
We’re still building great products for you!
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dah-dee
If you are wise you’ll try it for free.

What do you get when you get lots of cash?
Filling coffers and enlarging the stash?
Teams of developers coding like mad!
Making the app work on your iPad.

You’ll like the look of that!

It’s been a long time since Davie ran the Coupa Factory, and while there may have been a number of notable changes in management, one thing hasn’t changed at Coupa — and that’s the original product direction (and the heart of the development team*). Coupa’s goal is still to make the best P2P platform out there that’s so easy to use that even your grandmother and three-year old can use it and get all your spend under management (SUM).

In terms of progress since our last major review of the platform in 2009, which focussed on QuickStart, there has been a flurry of development — of a very interesting sorts. Having built one of the richest web-based P2P platforms on the market in three short years (with everything capable of being custom configured by an administrative user), Coupa made a very important realization — 90% of P2P is simple, straightforward, and limited in terms of required functionality. Find what you need, put in a requisition, get approval, cut the PO to the vendor, accept delivery, accept the invoice, queue it for verification and approval, issue the goods receipt, and make payment within the agreed upon timeframe when the invoice has been verified and the goods accepted. There’s not a lot of inventory management, logistics, payment structuring, etc. in an average corporate purchase made by an end-user outside of the Supply Management organization.

What there is, in fact, is a lot of bypassing of e-Procurement systems that make the process of getting your printer, paper, or widget for your production line more troublesome than going to the Best Buy website, the Office Depot website, or just calling up the supplier and asking for another shipment. So, if you want widespread adoption, which is the key to maximizing your SUM (Spend Under Management), you have to make it at least as easy to use as Amazon. Whether you’re using vendor catalog, punch-out, cXML, or an in-house catalog, searching, shopping, and requisitioning is seamlessly integrated. And it’s all accessible through their new Super Search Bar that seamlessly integrates Google search for what you need, Amazon browse by category, and free-form item/service search (which also allows product/service retrieval through internal or vendor product/service numbers) which can be global, by commodity, category, or vendor — depending on your configuration. Plus, their new dynamic shopping cart, which integrates accounting and budgeting data (so you know against what budget item a requisition will be charged, how much is left on the budget item, and how much will be left when the requisition is approved the minute you add an item to the cat), allows for split-billing and overrides in the cart in a process that is as easy as Amazon’s “one-click” checkout. And, policies can be linked to each item and service that allow for additional information within a search to be “popped-up” so the user can get full information (which can include budgetary and billing information) before an item is even added to the cart. Supplier taxes can be imported and validated against your own tax tables, fending off future nightmares for finance down the road. And when all is said and done, payments can be recorded and integrated with you ERP (and Coupa now supports out-of-the-box integrations with a couple of dozen major ERP and e-Procurement platforms).

Upon checkout, the system will automatically create the necessary requisitions (which will be sent to each individual who needs to approve an item in your master requisition), and, upon approval, the necessary POs for each vendor will be automatically generated and delivered — and all are easily accessible from your order history page with a single click.

The other big developments since our last major review are their Expense Management Solution, which was still in its infancy, and their new Spend Optimizer Solution, which could more accurately called a 360° Spend Visibility solution (which you can use as a starting point in spend analysis and spend optimization). Their Expense Management application is a great way to get your T&E under control (as iPhone integration allows expense reports to be automatically generated by users who simply have to take a picture of their receipt and import it into the application). They’ve taken usability to a new level with this one.

Spend Optimizer is their mega-dashboard reporting solution that is completely configurable and allows for the creation of just about any spend report you can dream up. Done right, you can have it display off-contract spend; late payments; budget overruns; high-spend categories, commodities, and vendors; and other spend hot-spots that could get you or your organization into hot-water down the road if not proactively managed by exception. It’s still a dashboard (which can be dangerous and dysfunctional), but you have the option to see green, see red, or see where the black holes are. It’s this last capability that makes the real difference between useless reporting tool and powerful spend miner, because, generally speaking, off-contract is where the trouble starts.

And brand-spanking new functionality is lined-up for fourth quarter. Their recent announcement that 9.635 Billion has passed through their platform is impressive, but when they pull off their next round of application development, that will be more so. Coupa is still a company to watch, so don’t take your eyes off them for too long.

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do
They’re still building great products for you!
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-dar
They have the goal to take your spend far.

* Dave and Noah may be gone, but David Williams is still there as VP Technology, overseeing day to day development.

Three Questions for Job Seekers in the Supply Chain Space


Today’s guest post is from Sudy Bharadwaj, who has been analyst extraordinaire of Aberdeen Group, a VP of MindFlow Technologies (who innovated the sourcing optimization space), CMO of Informance (who brought intelligence to the manufacturing floor), and a Sales Superstar at Inovis (who was one of the largest B2B eCommerce players). (Note that all of these companies made successful exits by way of acquisition.) Sudy is currently the CEO of Hound Technologies and JackalopeJobs.com, a new Web 3.0 job search start-up that is looking to revolutionize the job search process for the average job seeker (and not the average recruiter).

Since I have been involved in the supply chain industry for 20+ years, I thought I would share some observations for job seekers in this space. One interesting fact about supply chain jobs — they are all over the map in terms of qualifications and experience. Some high-end jobs require advanced degrees and lots of experience, while others can be entry-level positions.

Regardless of level, there are some common issues all supply chain job seekers should think about:

Are you a cost center or a profit center/revenue center?
Many supply chain professionals, while knowing they have an important role, do not do as good of a job of fully understanding and articulating their overall role in their ecosystem. Think of what revenue or savings you contribute to the company. By optimizing your supply chain, how have you contributed? Can you describe some customer satisfaction metrics? Cost savings metrics?
One famous example of where you fit in the supply chain: when interviewing an assembly line worker installing seat belts at an automobile plant, the line worker told an executive “I not only install seat belts, I save lives”. That’s a great way to look at the job.

How are you managing, building and maintaining your network?
In any job search, networking is crucial, however, in the supply chain space, it can really improve your chances. In addition to connecting to your former co-workers, how about customers, suppliers, partners, etc? You were part of a supply-demand web, which looks like a large network; treat it like your job seeking network. Rather than looking for roles within your exact industry, can you work with customers and/or suppliers?
When discussing his job with a job seeker in the demand-side of the supply chain (read: sales), the main points were selling of products. The first question I asked was “tell me about your customer”.
Job seeker: “They are a distributor of XXX products”
Me: “What else do they distribute”?
Job seeker: “Numerous products, including ABC and XYZ”
Me: “Can you sell those?”
Job seeker: “Of course”
It may not be so easy, but phone calls were made to the distributor, new introductions were made, interviews ensued, and a new job was started with very different products than the sales executive sold before.

Are you addressing your skills gaps?
If you are an aspiring supply chain professional, or returning war veteran, you can find help from your local workforce office or VA representative. A great example in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is what the Workforce Solutions of North Central Texas has done — they acquired funding to develop certification programs — Certified Logistics Associate (CLA) or Certified Logistics Technician (CLT). Don’t live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area?

Try hitting Google and searching for some common phrases. Just for fun, I Googled “supply chain certification program in north Dakota” and got some interesting hits. Some are online programs from out-of-state schools while others are state sponsored programs.

These are three different questions any job seeker in the supply chain space needs to ask themselves as they embark on a new job search.

Thanks, Sudy. And if you are looking for a new Supply Chain job, try JackalopeJobs.com.* It’s still in beta, so this means there are still some kinks to work out, but it’s the first site that combines the power of a meta-aggregator with the power of multiple social networks simultaneously. Not just a LinkedIn or Facebook app, it can utilize your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Plaxo social networks simultaneously to tell you who in your network might be able to help you with a job on all of the major job search sites. And, unlike most job sites that just do simple title search, it uses Natural Language Processing and Semantic Search to find other jobs that might be relevant to you. For example, if you searched for “inside sales” you would not find an “account executive” job at Oracle on other job sites, which is almost the exact same job, just titled differently in a different organization. And if you searched for Procurement, you might not find Supply Manager — but the Jackalope Jobs engine will. Of course, since NLP and Semantic technology are not perfect and still in refinement, not every result will be a 100% match**, but the majority of the results will be very appropriate matches and this approach furthers the the goal of the site which is to expose you to more opportunities that you might be qualified for and able to get as a result of your network than other job sites give you. And if you search different, you might get surprising results. Sudy’s next post will describe how you use the platform to search different.

 

* Full disclaimer: the doctor is currently serving as CTO of JackalopeJobs and has a vested interest in the site’s success.

 

* For example, the phrase “human resources” causes the platform no end of grief because not only does almost every job description mention it once (which is easy to filter out), but poorly written job descriptions mention the phrase more than once when the job is not a human resources (related) job, which leads the NLP keyword analyzer and/or semantic engine to sometimes believe the job might actually be related to human resources. So this search will often turn up more false positives than others. However, these jobs typically get weighted down as you will not likely have as many, or any, connections to jobs in a different industry if you are a HR professional.