Category Archives: Vendor Review

The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour Part 13: MFG.com

This post is a little lengthy, so it’s been broken down into Comedy and Community, which you can skip to if you’re short on time.

Comedy

Yakko Rapid Response Management. I don’t think we’d ever have thought of that at our old jobs!
  The maniacs just finished visiting with Kinaxis.
Dot It’s sure one cool concept! So Who’s Next?
Wakko Awesome album!

Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Wakko breaks into his best air guitar routine
Yakko & Dot Wakko!
Wakko What?
Yakko I believe Dot was asking a question!
Dot And I want to know what company we’ll be visiting next.
Wakko Oh.
So, onward where?
Yakko Are we done with the K’s?
Wakko I wonder what’s up with that little company down in the valley that we used to pretend didn’t exist?
Yakko Are you referring to Ketera?
Wakko That’s them!
Dot I’m not ready to go back to California.
Yakko I heard they have a new SaaS e-Sourcing offering! Maybe we can get a web-demo and research them online!
Dot That would be cool. I’ll give them a call.
Dot rings up Ketera.
Sales Voice You’ve reached Ketera! How can we help you?
Dot We’d like a demo of your new e-Sourcing offering.
Sales Voice Who are you with?
Dot The Media.
Sales Voice Well, we’re a little backed up right now … the platform is taking off much faster than we expected. Can you wait a few weeks?
Dot Well, uhm, okay.
Obviously not used to being asked to wait.
Sales Voice If you’ll give me your details …
  the maniacs trailed off here
Yakko Well, I guess we’ll have to catch up with them later.
Dot So where are we?
Yakko I guess we move on to the L’s.
Wakko Elle MacPherson … oh yeah … I could definitely …
Dot WAKKO!
Wakko looking confused
Yakko Lexington Analytics?
Dot Too Consulting.
Yakko Lexis Nexis?
Dot Too Data Focussed.
Yakko LlamaSoft?
Dot Too mathematical. And Wakko would spend the whole time tearing the place apart looking for llamas.
Yakko Log-Net?
Dot Too logistical.
Yakko LSC Consulting Group?
Dot Again, consulting.
Yakko Well, I’m out of L’s! On to the M’s!

Editor’s Note: Yakko wouldn’t be out of L’s if he’d check the resource site once in a while, which listed over 500 companies in the space, alphabetically sorted, and accessible by starting letter and major category.

Dot I seem to remember this company called Moai from years (and years) back. Think they’re still around?
Yakko I haven’t heard of them in years! Last time I saw a press release from them was … was … 2004! Not long after the Medebiz merger / acquisition. I thought they were as long gone as the Moai statues on Easter Island that they named themselves after!
Dot Maybe … but I thought I noticed that their web site was still there a few days ago.
Yakko Web site! That’s it! the doctor told us about a web-based operation that starts with M that we’re supposed to check out. Just a minute.

Yakko fetches his handy-dandy notebook.

MFG.
Wakko Are we going for Chinese food! I’m hungry!
Yakko M-F-G, not MSG!
Wakko Oh. Well, can we still go for Chinese food! I’m hungry!
Yakko You’re always hungry!
Dot So who’s this MFG?
Yakko According to the doctor, MFG, who bill themselves as the on-line manufacturing marketplace, is a SaaS-based marketplace where buyers and sellers can come together and do business.
Dot So where are they?
Yakko I believe they’re in Atlanta, Georgia …
Wakko Georgia, Georgia
The whole day through
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind
Yakko ignoring Wakko
… but the doctor says that everything they offer, and everything we should care about, is on-line.
Dot Time for another trip to the cyber-cafe!
Wakko Look! Look! Here’s a Chinese Cafe!
jumping up and down
Can we go? Can we? Can we?
Yakko Yes, Wakko.

 

Community

Wakko I love Chinese food!
Dot Is there any food you don’t love?
Wakko thinking … despite the look of consternation on his face
Escargot and Cavier.
Dot That’s sophisticated food.
Wakko I’d rather baloney.
Yakko breaking out the MacBook
Shall we begin?
Dot Sure. Where do we start?
Yakko Let’s go to the blogs for background. the doctor appears to have two MFG-focussed posts: MFG: A Community in the Making and MFGX.com – Exploding onto the scene, which I found through his handy Annual Vendor Day master index post.

Starting as a “parts marketplace” that is free to buyers, it has, especially after its recent acquisition of SourcingParts.com, a large supplier community that you can search, and tap, for custom manufactured parts and products through its free on-line sourcing and collaboration tools. Furthermore, it goes beyond just simple supplier directories, as MFG verifies the listed capabilities of suppliers who use the site and allows buyers to post their feedback, which it compiles into supplier ratings.

On top of this, it has a real-time supplier matching capability that works on detailed part specifications which will automatically locate the suppliers who are capable of filling your order. Once you select one, you can work with them using the built-in tools to collaborate on, and refine, the design until you get a high quality design that is cost-effective to produce.

And then there’s the companion MFGX.com site, released about six months ago, open to all manufacturers, and buyers, in an on-line forum that allows them to come together, share information, ask questions, post classifieds, find work, take advantage of open-source machine tools, and keep up with the latest news and trends. It’s all based on “Web 2.0” technologies – forums, blogs, wikis, and networking tools.
Dot Anything else?
Yakko the doctor has also cross-indexed a number of Spend Matters posts on MFG as well. Let’s check them out.

In Going Global with a Unique Leader, JB of Spend Matters tells us about their CEO, Mich Free, and how he’s a b-school type — gritty, school of hard knocks, and personally knowledgeable about how a machine shop actually works — and how he used that knowledge to build a team that actually understood what manufacturing is and what it needs in an on-line platform.

In Smock Gets the Scoop, JB references a recent interview that notes that MFG.com is planning to offer an advanced sourcing solution to buyers, which goes beyond its basic platform that will remain free, that will include “the whole nine yards of sourcing capability plus supplier relationship management and contract management for a subscription price of less than $500 a quarter per buying company”.
Dot Wow! That’s bargain basement pricing! For sourcing!
Yakko In the Fusion posts (I and II), JB told us about some of the visionary insights of Mitch Free, MFG’s founder, and how he’s trying to open up the manufacturing space in ways not previously thought of, and in “MFG.com — Building a Textile Marketplace”, he tells us how MFG is creating a new marketplace for textiles, an industry that, like traditional manufacturing, has been traditionally underserved on the web.
Dot Wow! Sounds like MFG are one busy bunch of guys and gals!
Yakko And that’s not all! In “Surviving China’s Rapidly Changing Sourcing Tides” (I and II), the doctor mentions MFGChina.com, the MFG companion site … in Chinese … to serve the Chinese marketplace.
Wakko Gan Bei! More Tsingtao please!
Dot Busy, busy, busy!
Yakko Very! I think it’s time to check the MFG.com site out!

Wow! RFQs are sorted into standard, commodity parts, for open, public bid and custom parts — making it easy for suppliers to find the RFQs most appropriate to their orientation. Hundreds of categories, allowing everything to be precisely specified. There has to be over a thousand standardized parts and products here!

And the resource collection is awesome! Industry LInks to CAD & CAM Software, Consulting Srvices, and Machine Tool Builders to name a few. Links to over 20 relevant Manufacturing Publications. Over 15 relevant manufacturing industry associations. Information on the major certifications and standards. Even a collection of useful utilities.
Wakko That’s a collection that even the doctor, with the largest collection of useful resources (on the Sourcing Innovation Resource Site) in the space, would be proud of!
Yakko And the help, and online process guidance, is very extensive. Even you could use it Wakko!

And as far as I can tell, MFGChina.com is just as extensive!
Dot What about MFGx.com – The Global Manufacturing Community?
Yakko I see over 10 active communities – Buy and Sell, Employment, Open Source Machine Tools, General Manufacturing, Sourcing and Procurement, Marketing for Manufacturers, Metalworking and Machining, Textiles and Apparel, Design and Engineering, Software, Logistics, and Materials. And everything’s a wiki document, so you can log in and make it better. And then there’s the blogs. Led by their blog-master, former analyst extraordinaire, AJ Sweatt.
Dot Does Mitch blog?
Yakko Occassionally.
Dot Too bad he doesn’t blog more. the doctor says he’s one smart cookie.
Yakko I don’t think those were quite the words he used.
Dot Same Dif.
Yakko Anyway, this MFG.com looks like a great resource for manufacturing buyers and suppliers alike!

 

The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour Part XII: Kinaxis

This post is a little lengthy, so it’s been broken into Kicking It and Kinaxis, which you can skip to if you’re short on time.

Kicking It

Wakko That hits the spot!
Yakko I hope so! That was your fourth serving of pulled-pork!
The maniancs just finished visiting Integration Point in North Carolina.
Wakko So, where are we off to next?
Dot I think we’re done with the I’s. Time for the J’s.
Yakko I only know of JVKG, who do services, and JDA who do logistics and warehouse management.
Dot I don’t know any J’s. I guess that means we skip straight to the K’s!
Yakko I don’t know many K’s either. What does Kewill Systems do?
Dot More logistics. Kanbay?
Yakko Consulting. Kinaxis?
Dot What do they do?
Yakko Something called Rapid Response Management.
Dot What’s that?
Yakko Honestly, I have no idea!
Wakko even Wakko doesn’t have a snappy combeack!
Dot Should we check them out?
Yakko the doctor says they’re rather unique
Dot That’s interesting … where are they?
Yakko Their US headquarters is back in Chicago.
Wakko Can we go to the Funhouse Maze this time?
Yakko I guess so.
Dot Okay! Let’s head back!
  the maniacs were recently in Chicago visiting FieldGlass
the maniacs head back towards Chicago; we rejoin them a few days later
Wakko Here we are!
out comes the mini-mallet
tap … tap a smiling man opens the door
Smiling Man Greetings!
Wakko quickly putting the mini-mallet away
Hi! We’d like a Rapid Response!
Smiling Man To?
Yakko What Wakko means to ask is, what is “Rapid Response”?
Smiling Man And you are?
Yakko I’m Yakko.
Dot I’m Dot.
Smiling Man And you’re with?
Dot No one at the moment.
Smiling Man So you want?
Yakko To learn!
Smiling Man And you’re here?
Yakko Because the doctor said you had a unique solution.
Smiling Man And?
Dot We’re bored.
Yakko Can you tell us what you do?
Smiling Man I’m not sure it will help you, but ok.

 

Kinaxis

Yakko So what is Rapid Response?
Smiling Man RapidResponse is our demand management platform, available on-demand, that is used by manufacturing supply chain professionals to manage their change-ready supply chains.
Yakko How does it do that?
Smiling Man It integrates with your supply chain systems, monitors data in real time, and automatically detects changes that could have a negative impact on your supply chain. It then alerts the appropriate individuals who can run different scenarios to evaluate their options and come together in the tool to collaboratively solve identified problems. But to really understand what that means, we need to take a step back and make sure you understand the problem.
Dot Sure!
Smiling Man In the past, manufacturing companies would typically forecast demands on an annual basis, cut contracts with suppliers and 3PL companies, and then tweak their operating plans every quarter or every month. These forecasts, and operation plans, would be created by gathering multiple years worth of demand and production data and a sophisticated set of assumptions created by internal experts, which would then be fed into complex planning software which would churn on a big model, often for days on end, and spit out a master plan that the company would adhere to.

But that was when business, and the world around it, moved at a slower, and more predictable, pace. Today, the world is increasingly volatile and dynamic, demand and available supply levels change rapidly, an ever increasing amount of your business is outsourced across an increasingly complex supply network, and yesterday’s plan may no longer be valid today.

Manufacturing operations need to be able to monitor their supply and demand networks in real time and take course corrections as soon as demands change or supply inavailability puts production, and thus revenue, in jeopardy. You can’t do that with your traditional Advanced Planning and Optimizer (APO) tool.

Our tool gives businesses the capability to monitor supply and demand in real time, immediately determine the impact of a demand or supply change from a production and revenue perspective, and react to the changes.
Yakko How does it do that?
Smiling Man We integrate with all of the standard ERP and planning systems on the market using data files in standard file formats and import data in from all of your manufacturing systems at your various locations — be they Oracle, SAP, JD Edwards, or Excel flat files — which is updated as often as you like — every day, every hour, or every minute. Every time data is updated, the relevant supply chain models are updated and any supply or demand discrepancies are immediately detected and the appropriate individuals are alerted through the tool’s message center, if the change doesn’t require an immediate response on behalf of a person, or through e-mail.

The appropriate individual can log into the system and review the impact of the change. She can then create virtual scenarios that, depending on the situation, reduce or delay production, expedite supply shipments, or alter expected demand levels. These can then be shared with colleagues who can collaborate through the tool to determine the right response to a demand change or supply chain disruption. When the appropriate response is decided upon, the supply chain model is updated, and any changes are pushed back to the appropriate systems the raw data was collected from.
Dot So is the tool hard to use? It sounds like it’s based on advanced mathematics. Am I right?
Smiling Man Like the APO systems it is replacing, it is based on very advanced mathematical models that combine the best of optimization and simulation and update themselves in real time on every data change. But, at least in our view, and the view of many of our customers which include some of the largest manufacturing organizations in the world, it’s quite easy to use — even easier than the Excel-based spreadsheets that so many organizations still rely on as their legacy APO systems don’t allow them to centralize all of the relevant data in one application or create virtual scenarios to analyze as many different possibilities as our tool allows.

Our application uses a tree-based table view which, once you’ve modeled the appropriate part of your supply chain network, allows you to quickly drill-in, find, and update the data associated with a product, part, or raw material. No more searching through pages upon pages of workbook data to find that one cell that needs to be corrected. Drill, drill, select the proper cell, update the quantity or delivery date, hit enter, and not only are you done — but the entire plan updates in real time.
Dot So it must be hard to setup the network?
Smiling Man No, that’s quite easy too. Create a “workbook” that represents the supply chain for the products you’re interested in, define the different nodes (factories, warehouses, distribution centers, and raw material supply centers), define the flows and their properties (Beijing to LA, 21 days, etc.), define the products you produce, consume, or transfer (within your production and distribution network) at each point, map inputs (consumables) to output (produced products), collect the demands from your current forecasting system, and you’re done. If you have a large network, and if you’ve never formally modeled your network like this, it might take a bit of time, but it’s quite easy.
Dot You say “workbook”. Does this mean your product supports multiple networks?
Smiling Man It supports multiple supply networks and multiple views of the same supply network.
Dot Why would you want that?
Smiling Man Let’s say you have a processed food division and a household products division. Although the products produced by both divisions might be sold in the same store, chances are that both divisions require very different inputs with little overlap, that use pretty much separate networks. In this situation, you’d want to model your supply chain as different networks.

You want multiple views because different business units — procurement, manufacturing, finance, and management — each care about different aspects of your supply chain at different levels of detail. Our tool allows you to set these views up once and then everyone gets to see what they want to see, how they want to see it, since you can customize the scorecards, and reports, available in each workbook.

And, as you probably figured out, each workbook supports multiple scenarios. The current scenario that represents your current production plan, and any problems that it might have, and multiple “what-if” virtual scenarios that allow you to model different plans, and different responses to changing supply and demand patterns, any one of which can be promoted to the current plan at any time by the individual with the authority to do so.
Dot So how many different workbooks can you have?
Smiling Man As many as you want. Most of our installations have at least 10 to 20, and we have a large number of templates to enable our customers to set up the views their various business units need. Our tool is quite versatile despite the fact it was designed for demand planning. Some organizations even use it for projected purchase price variance analysis because it has the most complete data view of any system in their organization!
Dot And it has lots of reporting?
Smiling Man You can set up scorecards for each workbook and scenario, define which metrics you want to track, and see how you’re performing today versus yesterday or another point in time. And you can create reports off of these scorecards. It’s not a full blown reporting tool, but it gives you what you need — in real time — and if you want something fancy, you can do a data export and create whatever you want in your internal reporting package.
Yakko Is that it?
Smiling Man Well, if we dig in, and open it up, you’ll find a lot of cool features and applications, but that’s pretty much it. Our customers told us what they really needed was a way to synnchronize supply and demand data, monitor it in real time, define corrective actions, and put them into play — quickly — so that’s we focussed on. An on-demand real-time application that solved the one problem no one else was solving for them. And that’s what we continue to focus on as our primary goal. As we identify additional capabilities that will be of use to our customers, we’ll add them over time. But our focus won’t change.
Yakko Makes sense.
Smiling Man We think so. And with that, I have more educational responsibilities to fulfill. Good day.

 

The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour Part XI: Integration Point

When we left off in our tale of the Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour, they had just finished meeting with the CEO of Iasta who told them all about bringing e-Sourcing to the mid-market masses and, in particular, the benefits of applying decision optimization and supplier relationship management to your sourcing process. We catch up with the maniacs in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The post is a little lengthy, so I’ve again broken it up into parts; Interlude and Integration (which contains the content).

Interlude

Wakko Faster, faster!
Dot Go! Go! Go!
Yakko Floor it!
For the sake of clarity, I should point out that the maniacs are currently at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway watching the cars take practice laps in preparation for their next race.
Wakko Do you think I can take one for a lap?
Dot Given your penchant for mischief, I’d be surprised if they’d even take you for a lap in the 2-seater experience.
Wakko Why not?
Yakko What happens every time you drive fast?
Wakko I tend to crash on occasion.
Yakko I didn’t hear you!
Wakko I usually wreck the car.
Yakko So do you think they’re going to let you take a mulit-million dollar piece of precision equipment for a spin?
Wakko solemnly
No.
Yakko Now that that’s settled, ready to move on?
Dot Where next?
Wakko I thought you said it was eSourcing Place now?
Dot glares at Wakko.
Yakko Well, we’re on the I’s and the doctor strongly suggested that we check out this place called Integration Point (acquired by Thomson Reuters).
Dot Where are they?
Yakko North Carolina.
Wakko Sweet Home Carolina
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Carloina
I’m coming home to you
Dot Don’t you mean Sweet Home Alabama?
Wakko Yakko said Carolina!
Dot But …
Wakko Works, don’t it?
Dot Yes …
Wakko Okay, then!

Sweet Home Carolina
Where the skies are so blue
Yakko & Wakko Sweet Home Carloina
I’m coming home to you
Dot, reluctantly, joins in
Yakko, Wakko, & Dot Here I come, Carolina!
  We catch up with the maniacs a few days later.
Dot Are we here?
Wakko reaching for his mini-mallet
I’ll check!
but before Wakko can tap-tap-tap, the door opens … a woman, who appears to be dressed like a marketing-type executive, answers
Marketing Executive Oh. Sorry. Can I help you?
Dot Is this Integration Point?
Marketing Executive Yes it is.
Dot What do you integrate?
Marketing Executive Now that’s a strange question. Who are you?
Dot I’m Dot.
Yakko And I’m Yakko. And that fella over there …
pointing to Wakko who has decided to bonk himself on the head with the mini-mallet, presumably in disappointment in not getting to use it on the door
is Wakko.
Marketing Executive I can see that. Is he okay? Do I need to get help?
Dot Oh, he’s fine. Don’t worry about him.
Marketing Executive Dot. Yakko. Wakko. Why do those names sound familiar?
Yakko & Dot We’re the sourcing maniacs!
Marketing Executive guarded
Oh. Well …
pause
we don’t have any open positions right now. Sorry. Have a nice day.
she starts to close the door … obviously, she’s heard of the maniacs and their antics
Dot Wait. We’re not hear for jobs, unless you have them.
Marketing Executive Then what are you hear for?
Wakko who has grown bored of his mini-mallet
Knowledge!
Marketing Executive I can see that you could certainly use some!
Yakko We want to know what you do and why it’s important.
Marketing Executive Why us?
Yakko the doctor said you’d broaden our horizons!
Marketing Executive Well
glancing at Wakko
I don’t think that will be too hard!
Dot So will you tell us what you integrate?
Marketing Executive If you’re sure you want to broaden your horizons. They say ignorance is bliss, and
glancing back at Wakko
it seems to me that he likes his blissful state of ignorance.
Yakko & Dot We want to broaden our horizons!
Yakko And you can ignore Wakko.
Dot Everyone else does.
Marketing Executive OK.
Looking sternly at Wakko. But the construction tools stay in your backpack. Got it?

 

Integration

Dot So what do you integrate?
Marketing Executive I think you misunderstand what we do. We’re not your run of the mill software development or consulting shop … we don’t “integrate” anything, except data.

Let me ask you this, how much do you know about global trade?
Dot You call up your supplier in China, tell him you’d like 20,000 DVD players, and then call up your 3PL to handle the delivery to your warehouse. Easy-peasy!
Marketing Executive Are you sure?
Dot What do you mean?
Marketing Executive What about government regulations? Import and export classifications? Duties and Tariffs? Consignment? Free and Secure Trade Zones?
Dot Aren’t regulations the supplier’s problem?
Yakko And don’t the suppliers know the classifications?
Dot And doesn’t the supplier just add the tax?
Yakko And doesn’t the 3PL take care of consignment …
Dot and the free and secure trade zones?
Marketing Executive No, not necessarily, maybe sales tax and VAT, not always, and definitely not.

Regulations are your problem. You’re the one taking ownership, you’re the one trying to import the goods, and you’re the one who’s going to sell them. You’re the one who has to make sure that the goods meet material and quality regulations, or face the consequences.

The supplier might know the right export code, and the supplier might not. But it’s definitely your responsibility that the right (HTS) import code is utilized. Otherwise, you could face huge losses if the wrong code is used and the tarriff is higher, or huge fines if the wrong code is used and the tarriff paid is lower than it should be. Your 3PL might be able to help you, but proper classification is ultimately your responsibility.

Identification of the appropriate duties and tariffs, and prompt payment, is ultimately your responsibility.

And whether or not you consign goods, and when you do it, is totally up to you.

As is the determination of whether or not you use free or secured trade zones in an effort to take advantage of what they have to offer.

Are you at least familiar with the basic Global Trade Import Cycle and Export Cycles?
Dot The Global Trade What-Now?
Marketing Executive You say the doctor sent you. Didn’t you at least take the time to read his introductory wiki-papers on Global Trade, Customs & Security, Free Trade, and Regulatory Compliance?
Dot Uhm … no. Were they important?
Marketing Executive Very. And they’d help you better understand what we do.
Dot Which is?
Marketing Executive Global Trade Data Management solutions that help customers with import management, export management, free trade zones, compliance, and other aspects of global trade.

Our solutions, which are web-based and true SaaS, help suppliers with classification; advance notification (as required by 10 + 2); denied party screening; free trade zones, foreign trade zones, and special economic zones; customs warehousing; AEO, C-TPAT, and PIP; free trade agreements; and import/export safety.

If you understand the cycle, you understand that there are significant documentary requirements at each stage. These documentary requirements can only be fulfilled with good, up-to-date data. Our systems maintain that data and help you with the creation and, where possible, the electronic transmission of the forms you need to the required parties — which include your supplier, your 3PL or import/export broker, and various government agencies. And, to go bo back to your “what we integrate” question, we can also integrate with a wide range of ERP (and competitor trade platforms) to pull the data you need for form creation out of your ERP and then push the data your missing back into your ERP for archival purposes.
Dot So you generate e-paper?
Marketing Executive Sort of. In terms you can understand, we generate e-paper that keeps you compliant. How much do you know about 10 + 2?
Wakko 10 + 2 = 12?
Marketing Executive It’s the new secure freight initiative from the US Government that requires a more detailed Security Filing that is being dubbed the “10+2” because it requires 10 data elements from the importer and 2 data elements from the carrier that must be electronically filed 24 hours prior to loading cargo onto a shipping vessel ultimately bound for the US. And it’s a doozy. Besides the fact that some estimates believe that it might cost importers 690 Million annually to implement, there’s the little caveat that if the principal fails to comply with the proposed Importer Security Filing requirements, the principal and surety (jointly and severally) would pay liquidated damages equal to the value of the merchandise involved in the default. So, if you’re importing a 1 Million dollar shipment, and you screw up, that’s a 1 Million dollar fine.
Dot That’s a lifetime of Prada bags!
Marketing Executive giving Dot a strange look
At least!
Marketing Executive And how much do you know about REACH? WEEE? RoHS? ELV?
Yakko What now?
Marketing Executive REACH: Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, WEEE: Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, RoHS: Restriction Of Hazardous Substances, and ELV: End of Life Vehicles. The European directives that specify what can, and more importantly, can’t be in products you want to import into the EU. Failure to comply can result in seizure and destruction of your entire shipment.
Yakko But that’s just in the EU, right?
Marketing Executive For now. But similar acts, especially with regards to RoHS, are popping up all around the globe in countries like India, China, and Korea, for starters.
Yakko But China’s the biggest user of coal. Why would they care about electronics?
Marketing Executive A few grams of certain metals and chemicals, which are restricted or banned by acts like RoHS and REACH, in old electronics equipment can contaminate over a million litres of ground water!
Yakko Wow!
Marketing Executive And even the third world countries are trying to clean up their acts these days. But back to topic. These aren’t the only compliance directives out there … different countries, and sometimes even industries, have their own. Our product can track any product-specific data you like, compare it to the regulatory requirements of major acts that we track, and even allow you to add your own industry or company specific regulatory requirements to compare the product data to. This helps you maintain compliance and, more importantly, helps you to avoid large fines and stay out of the headlines.
Wakko So your product helps companies get a complete view of their global operations from a regulatory and compliance perspective?
Marketing Executive stunned (since no one really expects Wakko to listen)
Yes.
Wakko Cool!
So, can we go get some pulled-pork now? I’m hungry!
Yakko stunned (since he usually asks for baloney)
Uhm, sure!
Dot I guess we have to go now. Thanks for the insight. I never knew global trade was so involved.
  And with that, the maniacs take their leave.

At this point, we take another short break in our story.

 

Perform-IS BizNet

About the same time the maniacs were back in Massacheusetts, scarfing down Boston Cream Pies, I got a call from BizNet asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their SPM solution, which is one of the leading SRM solutions used in the Oil & Gas industry.

My first thought was to send the maniacs, since they were doing such a good job in their Summer Road Tour, but the conversation (over a cell phone; which can be skipped by clicking here), which did not go well, went something like this:

Yakko Yakko’s Yummy Yuletide Eggnogs … you shiver, we deliver!
the doctor Yakko, it’s the doctor. How’s the road trip going!
Yakko Great. We’ve learned a lot this summer. Just a few days ago at Vinimaya we learned all about the power of B2B 3.0 Content Management …
the doctor So you’re in the North East …
Yakko Yep. Just outside of Boston at the moment …
the doctor Great! Put me on speakerphone.
click
Sourcing Maniacs, your mission, if you choose to accept it …
you have to be dramatic to keep their attention sometimes
is to review BizNet’s PerforMIS solution and let me know how good it is for SPM, particularly in the Oil & Gas sector where they appear to be market leaders, at least on a market-share basis.
Dot Supplier Performance Management?
the doctor That’s right, Dot.
Wakko I like managing suppliers!
Yakko Sounds like we’re interested. Where are they?
the doctor Belfast.
Yakko No problem. That’s just one state over!
the doctor Not Belfast, Maine, Belfast, Ireland. It’s just a short flight from Boston …
Yakko Sorry, doc. No can do.
the doctor Why not?
Yakko See, there’s this little thing called the No-Fly List …
the doctor What did you do now, Yakko?
Yakko It’s not so much as what I did, but what Wakko did …
Wakko How was I supposed to know I wasn’t allowed to dress up as a marine when flying on Halloween …
the doctor Well, as long as you don’t impersonate one …
Yakko You don’t understand, doctor. He had real knives, real guns, real bullets … the costume was so authentic the screech let out by metal detector shattered nearby windows …
the doctor Oh. You could charter a boat.
Dot That would take three weeks!
the doctor You could do a European tour!
Wakko Been there. Done that. And I’m not sure they’ll let me back into Switzerland …
the doctor Wakko, I don’t want to hear it. I can’t understand how you could possibly get banned from Switzerland, but I know I don’t want to hear it. So it’s a no-go?
Yakko Not this time, doc.
Background Voice Your pie, sir.
Yakko Gotta go!
click

So, I decided to get on the phone, and the web, and review the solution myself. Here’s what I found out.

 

BizNet has been in business for 11 years, and has been focussing on the Oil & Gas sector for the last 8 years. Starting out as a custom developer and integrator, they found that a significant need at many of their client companies was Supplier Performance Management, so a few years ago they set out to build a solution. After releasing an early version of the platform, their suspicions as to the dire need for supplier performance management solutions was confirmed and from that day on they decided to focus almost exclusively on data (through their capit@l product) and Supplier Performance Management.

Their solution is built to enable their version of the “SPM Loop” which is actually a double-helix that starts and ends with supplier engagement in a continuous cycle. Thus, in addition to being able to define and track user-defined KPIs in a very flexible fashion, a user can also create and manage corrective action plans; produce standard, ad-hoc, and customized reports that are meaningful to them and their supplier; and capture performance data on-line from the web.

The KPI builder is quite powerful. A wizard-based formula-builder, it allows you to build any KPI you want using all standard arithmatic operators (+, -, *, /, root, exp, etc.) and any numeric data fields that the system is tracking. KPIs are reported using the now-standard green-yellow-red traffic light signals (or, green-amber-red if you’re across the pond) in basic reports, and can also be displayed in a geographical KPI map with mouse-over pop-ups of rolled up scores by supplier, product line, or date range.

The product can be hosted on-site or used as a SaaS product, which is the way it was designed to be deployed by default, and the BizNet team, with their combined decades of experience working with enterprise systems in the Oil & Gas industry, can link it into your ERP and AP systems so that data can be pulled in automatically, sometimes “out of the box” if you’re using a standard ERP such as SAP or JD Edwards. They’re currently looking at ways to pull financial data in from external entities, such as D&B, to augment the overall supplier picture that the system creates, as this helps you with risk management, and they support standard XML formats for data interchange.

The system is scorecard-based, as you would expect; supports automated e-mail task and new report availability reminders; supports customizable workflows with multi-level approvals to insure that scorecards are created, reviewed, and monitored; supports extensive reporting capabilities; and supports an extensive scorecard hierarchy. You can break a scorecard down by division, location, etc. to as many levels as you want, by supplier, and then rollup at each level to calculate overall performance by city, province, country, and globally, for example. And you can use its dynamic filters to determine which suppliers fall into user-defined ranges — such as very poor, poor, satisfactory, good, and excellent — overall or by KPI category — such as quality, logistics, innovation, etc.

One of the more unique features of the tool that caught my attention was the Supplier Risk Management Component which allows you to define risks, probabilities, and impacts and then map risks on an impact vs. probability basis by supplier. You can then use dynamic filters to determine, across the board, the risks in each category. This will help you in risk planning, since you should be starting with the high probability and high impact risks first and working your way down.

The tool was definitely built to support an industry with complex SPM needs, and since no O&G specific language or processes were hardcoded into the tool (and just about everything is configurable or customizable), it should also serve similar industries quite well. In fact, BizNet have indicated that they’ve started to see some uptake in the Health Care Sector, which also have to carefully manage supplier performance to manage risk, and expect that they will be doing more deployments in that sector as well as time goes on.

So, if you’re in the market for an SPM tool, and you have complex requirements, I’d recommend checking BizNet out. As one of the few companies that just does SPM, and not SPM as an afterthought to sourcing or procurement, they have quite a robust solution. It might be overkill for some commodity-based industries that just have to track quality or traceability, but with risk-levels rising across the board, I doubt that there will be many companies that won’t be interested in using such a tool to its full potential.

The Sourcing Maniacs 2008 Vendor Tour Part X: Iasta

In our last installment of the 2008 Sourcing Maniacs Vendor Road Tour, the maniacs had just finished talking with a somewhat contemplative looking gentleman from GDM somewhere near Denver, Colorado. We rejoin them shortly after their conversation with the somewhat contemplative looking gentleman from GDM.

Today’s post is a little lengthy, so it’s broken up into Interlude and Inquiry, which contains the vendor content.

Interlude

Yakko, Wakko, & Dot We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
through our data the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig
is what we really like to do
It ain’t no trick to get rich quick
If you dig dig dig with a shovel or a pick
In a large data mine! In a large data mine!
Where a million diamonds shine!
Dot Where Next?
Wakko I think it’s called e-Sourcing Place now.
Dot sneering
Wakko!
Wakko Sorry!
Dot Any more G’s?
Yakko Lots of services companies! Global Procurement Group (Global Supply Training). Global Sourcing Specialists. Greybeard Advisors.
Dot Can you think of any technology companies?
Yakko Besides Google, not today.
Dot So on to the H’s then.
Yakko Hiperos?
Dot SRM. Hmmm … let’s file them under services for now.
Wakko Hyperion?
Dot Oracle, remember?
Yakko I guess we’re skipping the H’s too this time around. Where do we start in the I’s?
Dot I seem to remember this punky little upstart by the name of Iasta from our Ariba days.
Yakko I heard they were just 4-guys in a garage with a simple e-RFX tool.
Dot Well, that’s what we used to say they were. But when was the last time we actually paid any attention to them …
Yakko Uhm … err … I can’t remember.
Dot Neither do I! Should we check them out?
Wakko Well, I seem to recall the doctor mentioning them quite a few times on SI … there must be something to them.
Dot Might as well go for it. And with our e-Sourcing background, maybe we’ll even understand what they do!
Wakko So where are they?
Yakko Indianapolis, I believe!
Wakko Race car city! Cool!
Yakko Super Overdrive!
Wakko Wakko breaks out his best rendition of Super Overdrive by Billy Idol.

 

Inquiry

  The maniacs head off towards Indianapolis, on the scenic route. We catch up with them again a few days later.
Dot This is it. I hope they talk to us!
Yakko Their CEO is a blogger, and they sponsor the e-Sourcing Wiki, which hosts some of the best wiki-papers in supply management that you’ll find anywhere. I’m sure they’ll talk to us.
Wakko Wakko breaks out his mini-mallet.
Let’s find out!
Wakko taps on the door.
A minute later, a smiling man with a moustache steps out.
Wakko Who are you?
Smiling Man I’m the CEO of Iasta.
Yakko, Wakko, & Dot And we’re …
CEO The Sourcing Maniacs.
Yakko, Wakko, & Dot You know of us?
CEO Yes. I’ve read about your exploits, and Eric Strovink from BIQ warned me that you were making the rounds.
Dot Well, hopefully you’ve only heard good things about l’il old us!
CEO Checking that the door behind him, and more importantly, to the server room, is locked (see Where Pinky and the Brain Devise a Plan to Market Their Strategy for a reason why).

What I’ve heard varies. How can I help you?
Wakko What do you do?
CEO e-RFX …
Yakko yawn
CEO e-Auction …
Dot looking very bored
CEO Smart Optimization
Wakko Com-bin-a-tore-e-ul Op-ti-my-za-shun?
CEO Yes Wakko, we do strategic sourcing decision optimization … and we think it’s one of the best solutions out there. And we do Contract Management …
Dot perking up
CEO and we’re in the process of preparing our first Supplier Relationship Management release, better known as SRM.
Yakko Really?
CEO Really. And when you add in our built in project management and our Smart Analytics solution, based on BIQ’s leading spend analysis product, you see that we have one of the most complete end-to-end e-Sourcing suites on the market.
Dot So you go head to head with Ariba and Emptoris?
CEO All the time!
Yakko And win?
CEO More often than you’d be led to believe!
Dot How often?
CEO Let’s just say that we have well over 100 global customers, many in the Fortune 500, and that both our annual North American User Conference and our annual European User Conference are very well attended by happy customers who enjoy learning how they can do even more with the platform they have already bought, and at a very attractive price point I might add.
Wakko How attractive?
CEO We’re a True SaaS provider, so we are very competitive with our basic solution prices.
Dot Under a Million?
CEO We start at under one hundred thousand a year for our entry-level solution.
Dot shocked
Under One Hundred Thousand?
CEO Yes Dot, under one hundred thousand for our basic Smart Source solution. You don’t have to buy everything to start, and even if you do, unless you also buy a considerable amount of services support for your organization, it’s still under the seven figure mark that you liked to charge.
Dot still shocked
How do you make money?
CEO Economies of scale enabled by SaaS, and smart spending. We eat our own dog-food and follow our own advice. We keep our costs reasonable, which allows us to give our customers good service at a great price, and in return we keep them. We believe we have one of the highest customer retention rates in the sourcing space. But I’m sure you’re not here to discuss our success stories. What would you like to know?
Yakko How you’re different.
CEO Well, we think our product is better than our competition, but if you limit yourself to a “check-the-box” comparison, as so many analysts are prone to do, you’d see that our major solution differences when we are compared against your average sourcing vendor are our strategic sourcing decision optimization and supplier relationship management capabilities. These go well beyond your standard bid-negotiate-award-track capabilities found in your average e-RFX, e-Auction, and Contract Management applications and allow you to focus on identifying the best value for your money and then ensuring that the savings you negotiated, and contracted for, are realized.
Wakko But don’t a number of companies claim to have Op-ti-my-za-shun?
CEO Very few have true optimization, Wakko. Most just use heuristic decision support algorithms that they try to pass off as optimization. We use true Mixed Integer Linear Programming and best-of-breed industry solvers, like ILog CPlex, underneath a true strategic sourcing decision optimization model that meets ALL of the requirements outlined by the doctor in the wiki-paper.
Wakko And that’s important because?
CEO Because you need all four types of constraints — capacity, allocation, risk mitigation, and qualitiave — and costs — unit, usage, and freight — to accurately model your average real world sourcing scenario. Otherwise, the scenario you end up with is only approximate, which means the solution is only approximate, and, if you missed key constraints, not realistic. Without all of the constraints, and some “competitors” only provide a subset, you either get a result that’s too good to be true, and is, because you can’t implement it, or the result isn’t as good as you can get, because you couldn’t specify all of the constraints and discounts.
Wakko And it works?
CEO Remarkably. As covered in recent posts by the doctor on Sourcing Innovation and our own e-Sourcing Forum, we’ve had two events where we’ve saved over 20M on two projects of roughly 80 Million and 110 Million, respectively. We also find that we do hit the industry average of 12%+ above and beyond e-Auction savings alone when we apply the technology.
Yakko It must be hard to use. You need a team of PhDs to drive it, right?
CEO Not at all! It’s quite easy … your average intermediate buyer can drive it very successfully after just a few hours of training. You create the constraints using wizards and english sentence fragments. You can import the cost data from Excel or from your e-RFX. You can create a new what-if scenario by copying an existing scenario and changing only what you want. Your power-users will teach themselves to be experts in the tool in a matter of hours. I bet even you could use it Wakko.
Wakko But I don’t know how to do Com-bin-a-tore-e-ul Op-ti-my-za-shun!
CEO You don’t have to. Our tool does all the heavy lifting. If you can fill in a spreadsheet, use drop downs, and enter numbers in web-based text-boxes, you can use it. It’s really that easy.
Wakko Wow!
Yakko And what about SRM. Is that easy too?
CEO As you would say, yassuredly.
Dot So what’s it do?
CEO It’s still in development, and we’re aiming for a late 2008 / early 2009 release, but what it’s going to do is streamline data capture and sourcing processes for the buyer and supplier alike. The first addition to our suite is a new supplier self-registration portal, backed up by a workflow-driven custom survey development tool. This pair of tools, the first for the supplier and the second for the buyer, is going to allow a buyer to define what information they need from every supplier, and then what information they need from suppliers in certain verticals and / or what information they need from suppliers who wish to supply certain types of products or services to the buyers. Then, when a supplier logs in and enters their basic information, as well as specifying the products or services they offer, they only have to fill out the surveys specific to them.

The survey construction tool, which will look similar to those who have tried our relatively new contract management tool, is based on the same underlying concept that the user should be able to define what fields, and meta-data fields, are of interest and allow the buyer to define what information they want, and how they want it. In addition, our survey construction tool, which builds on our RFX creation abilities, allows a user to define survey pages, and then makes uses of wizards to guide the buyer through survey construction. And, of course, all of this data is indexed, searchable, and easily managed. Furthermore, as with contract management, the buyer can define triggers on certain events (survey completion, changes to key data fields, etc.) and certain values (expiry dates, renewal dates, etc.) which will send off alerts or e-mails when certain events happen or certain actions need to be taken.
Dot Well, that sounds pretty common sense. A few companies have that already. How’s it different?
CEO What’s different is where we’re going with it and, most importantly, the approach we’re taking. We realize that the “R” in SRM stands for “relationship” and that is something that can not be accomplished with software-based tools alone. You can only have a relationship if there is interaction between the buyer and supplier on a regular basis. This means that there are only two ways a tool can help: enable communication or disable the roadblocks that prevent it. The most common roadblocks are the various tactical tasks that keep getting in the way, specifically, the tasks around collecting, organizing, tracking, and reporting on data.

Thus, in our view, a good SRM tool enables communication — and that’s why we’re building a new supplier portal, starting with our registration site — and centralizes all of the tactical data collection, organizing, tracking, and reporting in one location for the buyer — and that’s why we’re building a new supplier administration module, starting with surveys and scorecards, that is integrated with the rest of our suite, including contract management and meta-bid enabled optimization, which will allow the buyer to track agreements, expirations, certifications, insurance, and performance data in one place. Sometime next year, the tool will also allow senior buyers to define workflows around supplier contracts and interactions, which will guide the buying team through the organization’s best-practice supplier interaction processes. And we’re also building in new commodity-based classification hierarchies that will allow buyers to better segment their supply base and define hierarchical scorecards by commodity category and location to help them get a better view of total operational performance and how a supplier is impacting that.
Dot And it’s all going to be integrated in one platform?
CEO Seamlessly. Unlike our competitors, who have been on acquisition binges for the last decade, we built everything from the ground up on one platform, in one core language. That allows us to seamlessly integrate all of our products into one application in a way that most companies would envy. That’s why we think our SRM will succeed where many have failed before. It may not have all of the bells-and-whistles of some of the best-of-breed stand-alone products, but we believe it will have the core functionality that everyone needs, plus provide the advantage that you only have to deploy one platform. It’s the classic 80/20 rule — 80% of the functionality, for 20% of the cost, and effort, for our customers. When the full platform is released next year, we believe that the majority of customers will find that it does more than what they need. And that’s what we feel the market needs.
Yakko That’s a very interesting take.
CEO And a practical one. Most of the mid-market just needs basic functionality in sourcing and procurement to get through the day. There’s only a few Fortune 500 / Global 2000 companies that are advanced enough to productively use every bell and whistle you can imagine. We’d rather serve the 90% of the Fortune 500 / Global 2000, and, more importantly, the mid-market at large, who have been underserved for years due to the big-platform price tags that have traditionally put the traditional e-Sourcing platform solutions out of their reach.
Wakko I think I get it. 20% of the Fortune 500 would give you 100 companies, and it’s hard to get 20% of the Fortune 500. But if you got 10% of the Global 10,000, that’s 1,000 companies, and there are still 9,000 other companies who need a solution, and a lot fewer companies serving them.
CEO That’s right, Wakko. It’s about building a great company with a great tool that brings great value to, and enables, the mass market. That’s what we’re shooting for. And we think we’ll get there. And with that, I must get back to work. Have a good day.

 

The Road Tour will continue on Thursday.