Source-to-Pay+ is Extensive (P34) … But How Do I Orchestrate Everything?

You’ve worked your way through the S2P series and are working your way through finding the initial solution(s) that you need and putting together a plan to select, implement, integrate, train on, and utilize those solutions as part of your daily processes. Since you’ve selected a number of best-of-breed modules (because you realized that you don’t necessarily need a suite, that no suite is best in class across all of the modules, and many of the modules only need endpoint connectivity because you’re not jumping back and forth when you’re within the process of that module), you’ve started wondering about the best way to integrate them (beyond data-based endpoint integration), and, more importantly, how to manage the projects around them (especially since it’s very likely that you won’t find general purpose S2P project management in any of the modules, as even suites can be lacking in this regard).

[Even if you selected a suite, you should still read on to find out just what that suite should be doing to make sure you are getting maximum value, especially since, and we’re sorry to tell you this, the 6 basic modules that form the core process are just the beginning — you will still need data enrichment, ESG/CSR, integration with services management, asset management, inventory management, logistics and supply chain, and other features these core modules won’t have in order to get to the next level of enterprise buying once you get through the first two rounds of opportunities.]

That really depends on

  • what S2P project tracking/management capability you have in the modules you bought (i.e. if the spend analysis module came with a savings tracking module that allowed you to define and track all sourcing/procurement projects at a high level, that may be enough, or it may not)
  • how much insight / visibility stakeholders need into the process status (some modules may provide them with the free/read-only access they need, some may not)
  • how much of your work comes from (one-off) requests vs. corporate purchasing mandates (i.e. are you mainly purchasing bulk products for resale, bills of material for engineering, etc. or are you purchasing a lot of start-up kits for new-hires, one-off requests for conferences/events, special BoMs for build-to-order, etc.)

If i) the spend analysis module contains basic project management in it’s saving tracking component ii) the stakeholders only need visibility during the selection and award phase of e-Sourcing, and they have that through the e-Sourcing module and iii) the team does very little one-off purchasing as they are supporting a manufacturing operation that has low turnover and only goes to the same old shows every year, then chances are customized end-point integration between the modules will be enough.

But, if i) the only “project” tracking is in the e-Sourcing tool and it ends at the award identification, ii) the stakeholders need visibility into the award process, contract negotiation cycle, and current/outstanding POs, and iii) there is a lot of one-off purchasing that needs to not only be tracked, but the status regularly communicated, then you may need a solution to integrate them in a process-oriented workflow and provide visibility into where each purchase request and project is to the appropriate stakeholders. These solutions are typically known as “intake” (and often marketed as intake-to-procure or intake-to-pay) or “orchestration” (and typically marketed as “procurement orchestration” or “sourcing orchestration”) solutions and are starting to pop-up rather regularly now.

The first solution, the granddaddy, of these was Per Angusta, which was recently acquired by SpendHQ. Founded in 2012 to manage the source-to-pay workflow, Per Angusta built one of the first open API frameworks to allow it to integrate with best-of-breed solutions on the market across the Source-to-Pay cycle, and to allow those best-of-breed companies to easily integrate with it proactively. By the time of its acquisition, it integrated with over two dozen best-of-breed solutions (and even a couple of suites) that allowed organizations to incrementally build their source-to-pay workflow in the order that made sense to them, and then easily integrate all of those solutions through one integration to Per Angusta.

It was more-or-less by itself for the first half of its existence, but since then options have cropped up to help you orchestrate the process, some within existing vendors (to provide an interface to the organization and orchestrate their various modules) and some new solutions to solve the orchestration process (and some of these vendors are now building core procurement/payment capabilities if they started as “intake” solutions).

So what are these solutions? And what do they do? We’ll tackle the latter question in our next installment [Part 35] (and then provide a list of vendors in the installment after that).

Per Year, How Much Should You Outlay for Source to Pay? 120K!

That’s right! We’re putting a stake in the ground on a real, actual, number! ( With caveats, of course, but still, a real number. !)

The one question everyone asks, but no one wants to answer, especially in North America, is how much? Most vendors want to get as much as possible, so most obscure their (true) pricing. Their analyst clients want them to get as much as possible (as they all dream of the day they get that Million-Dollar PO from a vendor in exchange for simply keeping the vendor at the top of the charts). Clients who think they got a deal don’t want you to underpay (and then have their renewal prices hiked up as the vendor seeks to maintain it’s profit margins) … and clients who think they’ve overpaid don’t want to tell you. And when some of the bigger vendors won’t even talk to you unless they think you’re good for seven (7) figures (i.e. One Million Dollars) a year or more, you might be tempted to think good (DIY) suites are out of your grasp.

They’re not. And if you’re smart, they can be quite affordable, and lead to not just an identified, but realized, ROI in a short time frame.

But first, here the first set of caveats around the 120K number:

[01] You are a true mid-market company, which we’re defining as a company more-or-less between 500 Million and One Billion in Revenues and an addressable spend of 250 Million to 500 Million (as you can’t address payroll, government controlled utilities, mortgages/long term lease rates, etc.).

[02] You have an average sized procurement team of under 30 people. (In a 2019 Benchmark, average organizations had 33.5 Procurement personnel per 1 Billion in revenue.)

[03] You’re doing an average number of projects per year for those people (and likely only strategically addressing 20% to 30% of the addressable spend per year).

[04] As you have (next to) nothing in terms of modern source-to-pay technology, your primary focus is the baseline capabilities (as defined in our Source-to-Pay series). You might want a few of the more advanced capabilities, but right now, getting the baseline (which will likely provide 80% of the value by allowing you to get all of your processes, and costs, under control) is the primary goal.

In other words, you [1] aren’t a large multi-national global enterprise (or small business with less than 100M / year going through Procurement), [2] don’t have a large team, [3] aren’t going to be driving the CPU utilization through the roof, and [4] aren’t expecting the top technology across the board (as industry average functionality or better is enough). In this situation, the vendor’s stack and (virtual) data center delivery costs are not ridiculous, it’s support requirements are not high, and it’s maintenance costs are predictable (as it’s not doing anything super complicated and novel in the tech that could require scarce talent). 120K is not only affordable, but sufficiently profitable (with a few more caveats that we’ll get to below).

But I’ve never seen a quote that low!

Where are you looking? Oracle? SAP? Those are primarily ERPs, selling on an old locked-in-for-life model (thanks to ridiculous up-front costs that accountants need at last 10 years to amortize). Coupa? That’s one of the largest super suites on the market with S2P, Finance, Supply Chain, Power-Apps, and very advanced capabilities (through one of it’s almost two dozen acquisitions) that many companies don’t need and may never use.

The reality is there are perfectly good (and sometimes best-in-class) solutions for:

  • Spend Analysis that are less than 24K/year for enterprise licenses
  • e-Sourcing (RFX/Auction) that are less than 24K/year for enterprise licenses
  • CLM (primarily Governance and some Negotiation support) that are less than 24K/year for enterprise licenses
  • Supplier Management (primarily Information/Relationship with some Compliance/Performance/Risk) that are less than 24K/year for enterprise licenses
  • P2P that are less than 24K/year for enterprise licenses

which adds up to 120K. Plus, there are some smaller, lesser known, complete S2P suites that have all of these core baseline modules for subscriptions less than 10K/month (120K/year), which, for a multi year deal, will even slide in slightly under 100K for a quick deal (i.e. 8K/month vs. 10K/month).

The other caveats are:

[05] This does not include integration costs, training costs beyond access to all of the online-training materials/virtual academy, and the implementation costs are limited to flicking the switch to activate the license and any necessary setup configuration.

[06] The sales cycle is mostly virtual (web demos, video conference meetings, etc.). You won’t get to meet the sales rep in person more than once during the sales cycle (and that’s only if you’re buying a mini-suite or a multi-year deal; these vendors stay affordable by keeping their costs down, and multiple on-site demos and meetings do nothing but drive up overhead and costs).

[07] Most vendors will help you with the initial data load (provided you are loading data from a supported system in a supported format), but refreshes will typically not be included in the ongoing support, which will mainly be limited to online help and workaround support for identified bugs while the bugs are being fixed.

[08] This will typically not include any data enrichment offerings also offered by the vendor, especially if those data enrichments are coming from third parties, but these will be pre-integrated and you will only pay the third party fee if you want to turn them on.

However, [05] it’s SaaS, and most integrations should just be data loads, and since most modern tools have fully documented, fully open APIs, this is something that, if not out-of-the-box, you can open quote among your verified service providers and get reasonable rates on. [06] the pandemic finally proved to stragglers that you can do business online, even if you don’t like it; and when you consider that insisting on everything in person when every 3 person trip adds at least 10K of cost to what could be a lower cost product, why insist on in-person when not necessary. [07] once the initial data is loaded, most of the data will be created, and live, in the system. [08] you’d always be going to a third party for data enrichment anyway, so it’s unreasonable to think the SaaS provider should include it in their price.

So, even though there are a lot of caveats, none are unreasonable and none should impact the value you can generate. And as per our recent piece on Five Easy Mistakes Source-to-Pay Tech Buyers Can Avoid , given that you’ll realize quite a bit of up-front value just by getting a tech-enabled process in place and capturing all the spend (which you can then analyze for true opportunities), you don’t need to spend more (until you identify which advanced functionalities will actually provide more value and then you can go out and buy those modules / augmentations one-by-one as you need them, and chances are there won’t be that many that the organization will actually get enough use of to justify the purchase).

And what if you already have a first (or second generation) solution and are ready to upgrade to a leading third generation solution with multiple (fourth generation) advanced capabilities? Or you just hired an experienced Procurement team used to working with advanced technology and are ready for / need multiple advanced offerings? (Or are borderline enterprise?) What should you pay then?

To be continued.

Money For Nothing / Silicon Procurement

(the birth of the modern procurement, in song)
(to the tune of Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies by Weird Al Yankovic,
which is to the tune of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits)

Silicon
Silicon

Silicon Procurement

Huh, now look here people
Listen to my story
A little story ’bout a man named Glen
You know something, that poor veteran
They say he barely kept his teammates fed

Now let me tell you, one day he was workin’
Poor Glen was workin’ for some dude
When all of a sudden, from out of nowhere
Well, there can an idea crude

E-Auctions, well, maybe you call it
Yankee or Japanese
He gotta compete with Mr. Ellison
And be in Silicon Procurement

Before you know it, all the kinfolk are a-sayin’
Yeah, buddy, you gotta be there
That little mogul built up his value prop
That little mogul became a millionaire

Now everyone said California
Is the place that you oughta be
He gotta package his assets
He got to move to Californ-ee
Palo Alto

e-Auctions
Big savings across the board
Yes!
Look at that, look at that!

Silicon, Silicon, Silicon Procurement
Y’all bid again, hear?
Silicon, Silicon, Silicon Procurement
Silicon, Silicon, Silicon Procurement
Silicon, Silicon, Silicon Procurement

Doubling Down on the Key Tech Selection Requirement: No Tech Should Be Forever!

Building on our recent post about The Sixth Mistake that most buyers make when buying tech, we want to double down on this concept. NO TECH SHOULD BE FOREVER!

Just like business processes evolve as businesses evolve, tech needs to evolve to meet those new process and business needs. And while the tech you select today may evolve tomorrow, and even the day after tomorrow, in a way that is appropriate for your organization, it may not be appropriate for your organization the day after the day after tomorrow. Why? The vendor could stop growing, at which point the investors decide to stop investing in R&D and just try to ride out the license and maintenance (i.e. bug fix) fees as long as possible. The business focus could shift directions in terms of product lines, services, etc. and what was the near-perfect solution may no longer be. The business could scale rapidly and need a broader / deeper enterprise solution. And so on. Time brings change, which means solutions need to change as new, or variant, problems arise.

This means that you should be selecting technology with augmentation and replacability in mind. This means that you are looking for tech that:

  • has 100% self-serve full data export capability (in case you need to get the data out)
  • has extensive self-serve configuration in terms of users, access, process flows, approval flows, terminology, templates, etc. etc. etc. (so that you can adapt it as your processes change in minor to moderate ways)
  • has a fully open API that supports
    • full data pull AND push requests
    • full programming and control of the workflow
    • full task execution capability to support augmentation and plugin
  • is accompanied by extensive documentation and education resources and partner training (in case the vendor is unable to support you with your service needs)
    This also means that you are likely looking for a vendor that:

        • is true SaaS (so you get all of their improvements as soon as they are available)
        • charges on a usage subscription with no hidden/termination/third party integration needs (so you can grow if you need to, or reallocate on a renewal)
        • allows you to start with a baseline user-base and then grow during the contract term (with prenegotiated addendums for additional modules / users)

    Moreover, when you approach solution selection with this in mind, you’re actually more likely to find the right solution as a vendor that builds a modern SaaS offering with a complete API, instant updates when new functionality is available, and offers extensive documentation and tools for partners is one that understands that the minute they stop innovating is the minute their competition will overtake them and be a more attractive offering to the market and their clients. A lack of lock-in really is a win-win for all parties. (Even if most vendors with the classic ERP mentality that a piece of software should be forever, and, thus, cost millions of dollars don’t get it.)

    In other words, you should immediately eliminate any vendor from your shortlist that doesn’t have an offering that meets these criteria. After all, as our S2P series is demonstrating, you will likely still have dozens of options that do. The only solution you’ll always need is a data store, but, as long as you use a standard database type and encoding format, you can even migrate that if you need to.

Source-to-Pay+ Is Extensive (P33) … So Here Are Over 75 Invoice-to-Pay/Accounts Payable Companies to Check Out

As promised, here is a partial, starting, list of over seventy-five (75) Invoice-to-Pay/Accounts Payable companies that have many of the baseline features we outlined in our last installment (Part 32) of this series. Please note that this list is in no way complete (as no analyst is aware of every company), is only valid as of the date of posting (as companies sometimes go out of business and acquisitions happen all of the time in our space), and does NOT include companies that may have baseline invoicing but are primarily e-Procurement companies and don’t have more than the absolute invoicing basics (and virtually none of the additional features of a modern e-Invoicing solution as outlined in our last installment). While many might consider those e-Invoicing/Invoice-to-Pay/Accounts Payable vendors, they are not under our definitions.

As with our lists of e-Procurement Companies (in Part 7), Spend Analysis Companies (in Part 12), Sacred Cow Companies that do, or support, customized “spend” analysis on Marketing, Legal, and SaaS (in Part 13), Supplier Management Companies (in Part 20), Contract Management Companies (in Part 25), and e-Sourcing Companies (in Part 30), we provide the company name, URL and LinkedIn URL if available, headquarters country, and other offerings we are aware of.

Do your research, and reach out to an expert for help if you need it in compiling a starting list of relevant, comparable, vendors for your organization and your needs. For many of these vendors, good starting points might be the Sourcing Innovation archives, Spend Matters Pro and Gartner Cool Vendor write-ups if any of these sources has a write-up on the vendor.

Finally, note that when we say Source-to-Pay, it means that vendor offers modules that also cover Sourcing, Supplier/Vendor Management, Contract Management, Spend Analytics, and e-Procurement. As to whether or not SI would consider these modules meeting the majority of baseline functional requirements, you will have to check the previously published starting vendor lists in those areas.

Shout-Out to the The Revolutionary for identifying some I2PAP companies the doctor would otherwise have missed.

Finally, a second reminder that inclusion on this list DOES NOT imply Sourcing Innovation is recommending the vendor.

Company LinkedIn
Employees		 HQ (State) Country Other Offerings / Notes
Abbyy 910 California, USA OCR, Document Automation, Process Automation
Accrualify ?? California, USA e-Procurement, Punch-Outs
Airbase 326 California, USA Expense Management/Corporate Cards
APExpress (Nivo1) 10 Pennsylvania, USA
AppZen 285 California, USA
AvidXChange 1598 North Carolina, USA
Basware 1450 Finland e-Procurement
Bedrock 78 Florida, USA Supplier Management
Birchstreet 336 Nevada, USA e-Procurement, Analytics, Hospitality
Candex 104 California, USA Tax Management
Claritum ?? United Kingdom e-Procurement, Sourcing, Analytics, SXM
Compleat Software 55 United Kingdom e-Procurement
Corcentric 588 New Jersey, USA Source-to-Pay
Corpay 1005 Georgia, USA Commercial Cards
Coupa 3,674 California, USA Source-to-Pay
CureMint 24 North Carolina, USA e-Procurement, Dentistry
Dataserv 126 Missouri, USA
DooAP 19 Texas, USA
eBidToPay ?? Bavaria Source to Pay
edicom 733 Spain VAT, PEPPOL
Emburse (ExpenseWatch) 932 California, USA Expense Management/Corporate Cards
EqualLevel 18 Maryland, USA e-Procurement, Public Sector, Funds Management
Esker 578 Wisconsin, USA Souring, Supplier Management, Contract Management, e-Procurement
Exflow (MSDynamicsWorld) ?? Sweden
Eyvo 24 California, USA e-Procurement, Contract Management
EZ Cloud ?? District of Columbia, USA
Finly 29 Delaware, USA e-Procurement
FleetCor 6,600 Georgia, USA Commercial Cards / Payments
Fraxion 58 Washington, USA e-Procurement
FullStep 128 Spain Source-to-Pay
GEP 4650 New Jersey, USA Source-to-Pay
Glean 227 California, USA
Inconto 8 Netherlands e-Procurement, Contract Management
Intenda 111 South Africa e-Procurement, e-Sourcing, Supplier Management, Contract Management
iPayables ?? California, USA
iPS 1047 New Jersey, USA
ISPnext 59 Netherlands Source-to-Pay
iValua 849 California, USA Source-to-Pay
Jaggaer 1,266 North Carolina, USA Source-to-Pay
Khareed ?? Pakistan e-Procurement, Supplier Management
Kissflow 466 Delaware, United States e-Procurement, Low-Code Platform
Kofax ?? California, USA Document Management
LexMark ?? Kentucky, USA Print Management
Marketboomer 11 Australia e-Procurement
MarketPlanet 72 Poland e-Procurement, Sourcing, Contract Management
Medius 562 Sweden Source-to-Pay
MineralTree 139 Massachusetts, USA Payments/Virtual Cards
Nipendo (AMEX) 55 Massachusetts, USA
Nium 1,014 California, USA Payments/Corporate Cards
Onventis 129 Germany Source-to-Pay
OpusCapita 471 Finland e-Procurement, Business Network
Oracle ?? Texas, USA e-Procurement, ERP
Order.co 146 e-Procurement, Source-to-Contract
PairSoft 124 Florida, USA e-Procurement
Proactis 557 United Kingdom Source-to-Pay
SAP 2,963 California, USA Source-to-Pay
SeriviceNow 22,304 California, USA Low Code Workflow Automation
SoftCo 131 Ireland e-Procurement
SourceDay 116 Texas, USA e-Sourcing, e-Procurement
SpendConsole 6 Australia Supplier Management
Stampli 230 California, USA
SupplyOn 227 Germany e-Procurement
SutiSoft 169 California, USA e-Procurement
Symbeo 83 Oregon, USA
Synertrade 180 Germany Source-to-Pay
Taulia 487 California, USA Working Capital Management
Tipalti 1009 California, USA Supplier Management, Payments, Tax/VAT, Fraud Detection
TradeShift 593 California, USA e-Procurement, Marketplaces
Tradogram 15 Ontario, Canada e-Procurement
Unimarket 77 New Zealand e-Procurement, Contract Management
Vortal 188 Portugal e-Procurement, eSourcing, SRM, Contract Management
Vroozi 66 California, USA e-Procurement
Xeeva (Simfoni) 127 Michigan, USA Source-to-Pay (through Simfoni)
xSuite 16 Massachusetts, USA e-Procurement
Yooz 358 France e-Procurement
Zip 347 California, USA Intake, Vendor Management, Payments
Zycus 1464 New Jersey, USA Source-to-Pay

We ain’t done yet. Come back for Part 34 where we begin to tackle the next set of emerging applications to manage the Source-to-Pay process!