iValua: Brewing the Kettle for the Vertical Petals

When SI last did a deep dive on Ivalua back in late 2013, they were proving their mettle with source-to-settle (Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV) because an integrated Source-to-Settle (S2S) platform brings unparalleled benefits to Supply Management. Since then, they’ve been extending the platform, but instead of broadening it (as they already had just about everything covered except decision optimization and cashflow optimization), they’ve been deepening it with industry specific functionality for a plethora of verticals, namely, the manufacturing and automotive industry; the banking and services industry; the retail and distribution industry; the construction, oil, and gas industry; the health care industry; the telecom industry; GPOs (Group Purchasing Organizations), and the public sector.

For the machining and automotive industry, in addition to their powerful RFX capability which allows buyers to create detailed cost models for components and products being sourced, they also have integrated sourcing project management (as a Bill of Materials might require multiple sourcing projects, capabilities for New Product Introduction (NPI) management, asset and tooling management and tracking, and the ability to identify raw material / component price data variance across plant locations. This is in addition to the detailed supplier master data management (that can support the definition of approved suppliers by category, buyer, and location), quality tracking and management (through scorecards), and productive action plans (that build on the corrective action plan capability).

For the banking and services industry, in addition to vendor managed catalogs, contract compliance management, invoice data capture, and dynamic discounting, unlike some of their peers that grew up in the indirect (commodity) sourcing world, they support detailed rate cards and services profiles, e-Signature integration, and multi-envelope bidding.

For the construction, oil, and gas industry, in addition to support for spot-sourcing and spot-awards to on-contract suppliers, detailed service personnel data collection, and supplier data access to available assets (and tools), the platform also supports the creation of field service request estimates based on PR and PO process initiation, asset and tooling management, automatic monitoring of supplier credentials and certificates, data collection for supplier personnel performance management, and the collection of documents and specifications on all relevant supplier safety practices.

They’ve also fleshed out their analytics and out-of-the-box reports to cover spend data and metrics from all aspects of the source-to-settle lifecycle (which is easy to do when all of the data is in one store maintained by one platform, and not 3, 4, or 5 — which is common with some of their competitors that created their suites from multiple acquisitions), increased the configurabilty of their solution (where the buying organization not only has control over modules and workflow, but even what is displayed, or not, on individual screens), exposed the full extent of their integration capability within the platform (where lead buyers can configure the APIs through a simple form-based interface and XML), and created an add-on store where clients can share and download additional reports and components and integrations created by their peers or third parties.

Ivalua is still coding strong, and extending their platform year after year. It’s hard to say what will come next, as two-thirds of their road-map is always client-driven, but if you’re looking for a true, native, end-to-end source-to-pay platform from a responsive organization, the Ivalua platform is one that should be on your short-list.

Sponsored Post Free!

The following lyrics are to the tune of Consequence Free by Great Big Sea. (Lyrics)

Wouldn’t it be great? If content never was distended.
Wouldn’t it be great to say what’s really on my mind!
I’ve always said that blog posts should be as intended,
And if I just said nothing, would that be such a crime?

I wanna be sponsored-post free.
I wanna be where all things said do matter.
I wanna be sponsored-post free.
Just write Na Na Na Na Na Ne Na Na Na

I could really use, to lose my vendor conscience.
Cuz I’m getting sick of feeling guilty all the time.
Clients abuse it, they squash my good intentions.
They say a bit of gossiping, but not the hurting kind.

I wanna be sponsored-post free.
I wanna be where all things said do matter.
I wanna be sponsored-post free.
Just write Na Na Na Na Na Ne Na Na Na

I couldn’t sleep at all last night
Cause I had so much on my mind
I’d like to leave it all behind
But you know it’s not that easy
Oh, for just one night … ’cause …

It wouldn’t be great, if the pay-checks ever ended
If you drop a post won’t be long ’til it’s last check
One always needs to worry ’bout approval and commission,
You can’t run off the track and never worry ’bout the rent.

I wanna be sponsored-post free.
I wanna be where all things said do matter.
I wanna be sponsored-post free.
Just write Na Na Na Na Na Ne Na Na Na

Oh wait! Unlike many other blogs, SI already IS sponsored post free (as it has always been)! As per the FAQ, SI has never accepted sponsored posts, sponsored links, or similar advertising — even though the vast majority of blogs do these days. It’s never taken a cheque to publish someone’s copy with it’s logo, even though it knows for a fact that at least one major blog / new “analyst” firm in the space does on a regular basis.* And it never will. The only “advertising” SI accepts is sponsorships, which come with rigidly defined benefits, and only so long as the sponsor honours the rules. (the doctor won’t work with any company that won’t respect SI’s code of conduct and ethics, diligently outlined on the FAQ, nor will the doctor work with any company that won’t respect that the doctor has the final say on any copy that carries the SI brand.)

* Not the one it works with regularly, so this should help the interested reader narrow down which one it is …

One Hundred and Fifteen Years Ago Today

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, whose last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of to recognize those who made discoveries that brought “the greatest benefit on mankind”, the first prizes were awarded in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine in 1901. Shortly after his death, the Nobel Foundation was established to manage the finances and administration of the prizes and shortly after the first prizes were awarded.

And 115 years later, the prizes that are widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, peace, and economics, are still being awarded and the benefits yet to be found are still blowin’ in the wind.

What do you think LOLCat?

LOLCat and SI congratulate Bob Dylan. After all, we’re still only bleeding.


Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their marks,
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark,
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits,
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates.
Goodness hides behind its gates,
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked.

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), Bob Dylan, 1965

What’s the Future of Just In Time for Consumer?

It’s the holiday season, which means retail is in overdrive. This means on-line retail is in overdrive, and this means shipping is in overdrive.

Shipping which relies on postal services or private carriers. Postal services which are in dire straits and which are getting costlier by the year and private carriers which are also getting costlier. The USPS recently announced yet another round of price increases for 2017, just six months after it raised prices almost 10% (which followed price increases barely six months before).

Costs just keep increasing, and it’s hurting small retailers who can’t negotiate Amazon and eBay bulk shipping rates (and offer free shipping @ 35 or low cost shipping on individual orders). People aren’t going to pay a $20 shipping fee to ship a $10 product. And they’re not going to buy from retailers where this is the case.

So, we’re entering the age where the Amazons and their ilk are going to do in the online world what the Walmarts and their ilk did in the offline world — kill the little guy unless the little guy falls in line. Prepare to see even more Amazon and e-Bay storefronts popping, piggy-backing off the already in place infrastructure in exchange for a small piece of the profit. And prepare to see the closure of even more independent storefronts that wanted to compete without having to give a cut to the new digital mafia, as they just won’t be able to compete.

This means that sales will centralize, but shipping rates won’t necessarily standardize. The Amazon resellers also use the Amazon warehouses will be able to take advantage of the lowest shipping rates, and the rest, like the e-Bay storefronts, will be subject to reduced rates, but not the Amazon warehouse rates. And these rates will keep increasing as fuel goes up, labour goes up, and the carrier rates go up even more. Stores were invented for a reason — it’s much more cost effective to ship a pallet to one location than 100 items to 100 locations. Even with route optimization, right turns only, last-leg optimization with the local post, and so on — package delivery costs can only go so low. As long as a human is involved.

This says that the future of just in time for the average, cash-strapped consumer, is likely one of two futures. The past where physical stores regain their supremacy. Or the pre-SkyNet future where drones rule the skies.

However, the best future for just in time consumer delivery might be one where the old mail order model is modernized for the e-Commerce world. Back in the day, if you were in a rural community or small town, and you wanted something from a big box store (like Sears) you’d go to a local mail-order outlet where you would hand over some money (which could just be a deposit or the entire amount) to order something from a catalogue. Then, a few weeks later, you’d go back to pick it up. Amazon has revived this with the Amazon locker where you can get faster delivery and pick up by agreeing to pick up at a nearby locker, which is essentially a digitized bus locker system where you scan a code which opens a locker with your package.

The best future is one where a third party opens a lock location that can be rented by any online merchant that wants to use a locker for delivery where carriers offer lower rates to ship to the locker location. It would require at least USPS to agree to offer lower rates to ship to a locker location, which would require a large number of locker locations for the locker owner to negotiate better rates. This means that, in the short term, for this concept to take off, Amazon will have to go heavy into it, offer not only faster shipping but significantly lower shipping rates to get them to take off, and then offer these rates to their resellers at cost, or a loss, to get everyone using them. But it would then be able to capitalize on yet another revenue stream, as it could allow third party non-Amazon storefronts to ship to these locations for a small fee, and get an even bigger footprint in the physical world — which would allow it to create Amazon stores with “best sellers”, the same way Apple was able to create Apple Stores.

In summary, the future of just in time for consumer is still a bit cloudy, but it should be a hybrid locker / storefront model where costs can stay down, but customer satisfaction can stay high. Thoughts?