Category Archives: Procurement Innovation

Intenda – A Trusted Platform for Public Sector Procurement

Intenda is another name you might not know, as they are a South African Enterprise whose primary global customer base centred around South Africa, the UK, and Australia, but they are a very strong provider of Source-to-Pay in the public sector with tens of thousands of users across multiple global sites that collectively serve customers in over 30 countries.

Intenda is one of the unique, odd-ball, providers in the Source-to-Pay world. Like b-Pack (now part of Determine) and iValue, it’s development was heavily influenced by its initial customer base and in addition to standard S2P functionality, it also has

  • inventory & asset management,
  • GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) and Traceability, and
  • GPO / central service centre support.

From a Source-to-Pay (S2P) perspective, the strength of the platform lies primarily in its Purchase Order (PO) and invoice management capability and secondarily in its sourcing management capability. The requisition management capability is among the most powerful and most flexible on the market. Not only can requisitions be very detailed with complete part information (if known), multiple lines, cost breakdowns, detailed headers for proper (approval) routing and budget assessment, but different requisitions, with pre-defined headers, processing, and routing information, can be created for each type of purchase, each business unit, each geography, and each special case that the organization needs to support.

The system also supports detailed RFQs/RFBs, the ability to compare them side-by-side using multiple weighting schemes, and do calculation scenarios on sub-bids using any set of filters or restrictions that are required. The platform also supports basic e-Auctions for those clients that want it, but this feature is optional. A user can create an extensively detailed requisition, flip it to a (senior) buyer who can use it as the basis for a detailed RFP, get quotes, and then run an auction and/or make an award.

But the biggest strength of the platform is the audited and government approved security. The solution supports defense clients and revenue service clients in multiple countries, and has gone through just about every security and certification test that one can think of for a SaaS based solution. The solution, which supports fine-grained role-based security, heavy encryption, and multiple levels of authentication, including LDAP integration, if required, has been verified as secure by the most demanding of organizations. Very few platforms have gone through the level of security validation that Intenda has.

If you are a public sector body, or a large multi-national private sector organization that needs an inclusive S2P platform, Intenda is another platform you need to know about. For a detailed review, check out the recent Spend Matters Pro series (membership required) by the doctor and the prophet (Part I). The insights are worth it.

Coupa IPO: Good or Bad?

Coupa has filed for a 75 M IPO. Coupa is going to go public, like heavyweights before it, and things are going to change. The question is, for better or worse?

Many bloggers, analysts, and even journalists have written much about the subject, and you can probably buy at least a dozen in-depth analyst reports by now advising you on whether you should invest, how much, when, and how to make money off of it.

And if you are interested in that, go and Google that Sh!t, because, you guessed it, SI doesn’t care about that in the least. What it cares about, and the only thing it cares about, is whether or not its good for Procurement. This blog is about education — process transformation, technology, and talent enablement — not about how to make the most money (or even save the most money, because it’s not savings, its value generated … savings are here today, gone tomorrow without foresight).

So is it good for Procurement? Yes and No. That’s right, Yes and No!

The 75M will help them considerably expand their platform, their support, their global reach, and, most importantly, their sales force. As with any big company that goes IPO, they will need ramp up their sales quickly to support their overhead, which means more big ticket sales. The only way to do this will be to focus on the Global 3000 or the large mid-market companies growing fast that are willing to invest extra dollars in an effort to crack the Global 3000. And if you are one of these companies, they are going to do everything they can to be the perfect solution for you, or at least the best option you have, as they try to win the P2P market away from SAP (Ariba), GEP, and SciQuest and fend off the European heavyweights, like Basware, that are making inroads in their home turf.

But if you are a mid-market Procurement organization, or smaller, and the Procurement organization that Coupa was originally designed for when they launched on Procurement Independence Day ten years ago, not so much.

Big organizations want big, extensive, bloated, solutions with lots of features, and lots of support, that come with big price tags — price tags that are often higher than a smaller organization wants to, or can, pay. And even though Coupa could offer a slimmed down offering at an affordable price tag if they wanted to, it’s not going to be their first priority when they have to prove the value of their IPO. So if you are in this group of Procurement organizations, its not so good for you – at least not in the short term. (Longer term, they could create a platform license model for their core, like Trade Extensions does, and allow a third party to bulk sell at lower rates in exchange for them taking over support and the associated overhead costs, the same way many companies offer SAP support, but that’s not likely in the short term.)

So that’s the short answer for Procurement organizations, which is not the same answer for Investors or for Coupa, but we’ll leave those answers to the analysts and investment advisors.

Want an Exceptional Supply Management System? Do NOT Forget the Supplier!

Exceptional results come from the right intersection of exceptional talent, exceptional technology, and exceptional transformation. The three T’s.

And while each piece is important, and no piece can be ignored, the importance of good technology is often overlooked, and, more importantly, key factors that differentiate good technology from great (and exceptional) technology are almost always overlooked — and this is one reason why there are so few true best in class Procurement organizations (and why the Hackett top 8% is the top 8%).

So what makes a great Supply Management System?

Factors include, but are not limited to:

  • ease of use as even a junior buyer should find it natural
  • customizeable workflow as it should fit the transformed organizational processes
  • data import/export as data will need to be imported from ERPs and predecessor systems and exported to successor systems
  • templates and template customization so that RFXs/Auctions/Orders/etc. can easily be created, customized, copied and reused ad infinitum
  • multi-currency support as most Procurement organizations have to deal internationally

And each and every one of these factors should be considered, and included in the evaluation of the supply management system, and systems that do not score well against each and every one of these factors tossed aside, but is this enough to insure you get a great system? Of course not!

First of all, it has to contain all of the specific functions required of the system you are evaluating. For example, if the organization is looking for strategic sourcing, then the organization needs optimization-backed RFX and Auction capability as well as analytics and spend analysis. For Procurement, requisition management, approvals, budget integration, automatic (split) PO creation, good receipt management, invoice acceptance and m-way comparison, etc. And so on. If all functions are there, and all work well, it could be a great system — for the organization.

But will it be an exceptional one? Not necessarily. Exceptional systems need lots of data — and use — to produce exceptional results. Some needs to come from the organization. Some needs to come from third parties. And some needs to come from suppliers. And typically that data is needed in (near) real time. Which means you need suppliers to use the system — which is something they are only going to (want to) do if it’s easier for them to do it in the system, than do it outside the system (and bitterly complain if they are forced to use it to submit invoices to get paid).

This means that the system also needs to be designed for the supplier — something many first, and even second, generation systems were not, even if they had a supplier portal.

Not only should the system be as easy to use for the supplier as it is for the buyer, but it should enable their workflows, provide them with templates, make data import and export as easy for them as it is for the buyer, offer them full multi-currency support as well, and support the internationalization necessary for all of your suppliers in the countries you do business with to use it in their native language.

For example, if you want a supplier to respond to each and every RFX and auction, make it easy for them to manage their catalogs and quickly select the relevant products, update price lists, define volume discounts, and define what you get to see — and don’t get to see. If you want a supplier to use it for e-Invoicing, make it easy for them to upload, create, manage, and track invoice status not just of invoices sent to you, but of all their invoices (as chances are their AR system or sales system doesn’t do that). Make sure they have the same rights to create user accounts, set permissions, and delegate work (especially with respect to RFX responses) to the right people as you do. Let them toggle between languages. And, most importantly, before they submit, let them see what you see the way you see it.

And if the system is truly exceptional, you’ll easily be able to see what they see (with a toggle view) before you send it. Suppliers are your supply chain, so it’s as important to support them as it is to support you — and an exceptionally designed system will do that.

Training a Procurement Team

Special thanks to Charles Dominick, SPSM3 of the Next Level Purchasing Association for this guest post.

In the previous post of this series, I covered how to determine the competencies in which each of your procurement team members should be trained. Today, I will cover the options for procurement training.

Specifically, I’ll cover the advantages and disadvantages of these five options:

  1. Internal Training
  2. On-Site Seminars
  3. Conferences
  4. Online Courses
  5. Certification Programs

Let’s begin …

Internal Training

Internal procurement training is when seasoned members of a procurement team provide classroom-style instruction to less senior members of the team.

Advantages: The main advantage of an internal training approach is that the training can be customized to be laser-focused on the issues specific to the organization. Also, no travel is required, making internal training convenient and low cost.

Disadvantages: There are many disadvantages to internal training. First, just because someone is a good procurement professional doesn’t mean they will be a good trainer. They are two separate professions. And it can be painful to listen to a less-than-expert public speaker drone on for hours at a time. Second, a valuable outcome of training is being exposed to new ideas that can be adapted to the organization. Internal training does not provide for such new ideas. Third, preparing a training event is more time consuming than many non-trainers think. When a procurement professional is spending hours upon hours preparing for training, they are not doing what they were hired to do: deliver value through excellent procurement performance. Fourth, taking an entire procurement team away from its regular duties to sit together at the same time in a classroom could lead to delays or disruptions in business operations.

On-Site Seminars

Holding on-site seminars involves hiring a trainer to deliver live training right at the facility where the procurement team works.

Advantages: Like internal training, on-site seminars do not require the staff to travel, offering convenience. But, unlike internal training, on-site seminars are conducted by expert trainers, which makes a high quality training experience much more likely.

Disadvantages: Like internal training, taking an entire procurement team away from its regular duties to sit together at the same time in a classroom could lead to delays or disruptions in business operations. Also, not all on-site trainers are available for questions after their time on-site is over. Finally, if you want the best trainer in the country or world — not just the best local trainer — it can be expensive as you will have to pay the speaker’s fee and his/her travel expenses.

Conferences

Conferences bring together procurement professionals from multiple organizations and multiple geographies, exposing them to a wide variety of educational sessions and providing them with networking opportunities.

Advantages: Attending conferences is a great way to be exposed to a wide variety of new ideas in a very compressed period of time. The opportunity to network with ambitious procurement peers is a benefit that is arguably just as important as the education.

Disadvantages: Sometimes, conferences have such a variety of topics presented that you don’t get as deep an education in one topic as you’d like. Also, having to be out of the office for two, three or more days is difficult for some procurement professionals.

Online Courses

Online courses provide procurement professionals with on-demand access to educational content. Learners access these courses via computers or mobile devices.

Advantages: This option removes the geographic and time-related barriers to learning from the best procurement training organizations. Procurement professionals can participate on their own and progress at their own pace. Questions can be asked at the time answers are needed most — when learned techniques are being implemented. The education can be consumed in small increments, serving as less of a distraction from normal business activities.

Disadvantages: Unlike conferences, where face-to-face networking is a top benefit, the benefits of online courses are more education-related.

Certification Programs

Certification programs take education to the next level by awarding a credential after the successful completion of training and testing.

Advantages: While many procurement leaders struggle to figure out the best topics on which their teams should be trained, certification programs are based on years of already determining that, providing a turnkey plan for procurement staff education. By successfully completing a certification program, a procurement professional will be awarded the privilege of using a credential — like SPSM — after his or her name. Credentials help procurement professionals prove their value and generate respect among peers, management, internal customers and suppliers.

Disadvantages: The best certification programs are designed to confirm that the best and brightest procurement professionals are, well, the best and the brightest. That means they may be too challenging for lesser performers.

As you can see, procurement professionals have a lot of options for training. The good news is that all of these options have merit. Any time that there are a lot of options, there is a chance of being overwhelmed and getting wrapped up in “paralysis by analysis.” My advice is to choose at least one option every year. Because when it comes to activities designed to increase your procurement knowledge, doing something is always better than doing nothing.

Eved: Events Demystified

Eved, an event commerce company, was started to fill one of the holes in big organization spend management — event spend management. In many organizations, including those that use Ariba, event spend management can be a Million-dollar black hole — per event! For example, all most sourcing platforms can do is cut an all-inclusive PO to the event management vendor and process an all inclusive invoice, which could just be an invoice for venue, food, and services. Not much visibility or control into event spend management!

Without good expense management, companies are missing out on opportunities to impact millions of dollars of meeting and event spend because of disparate, disconnected systems and manual processes. This results in, among other inefficiencies, missed sourcing opportunities, extreme workflow inefficiencies, budget overage and spend leakage, and compliance (policy) risk.

However, with the Eved platform, the organization’s sourcing platform can cut a PO to be managed by the Eved platform, which can give fine-grained spend visibility into all event costs, track, and limit them, to a budget. The Eved platform has evolved over time to meet the needs of end-to-end event spend management including, but not limited to, budget management, program management, schedules, purchase orders, services, invoices, receiving, and other event-related requirements.

It also supports the full event sourcing process including, but not limited to, sourcing, supplier management, award, contract, change orders, invoices, reconciliation, and payment — capturing all of the necessary data for analytics and tax management. It also handles registration, attendee management, and related activities. The expense reconciliation is in real time, budget updates are real time, purchasing policies can be created and enforced, and the platform can be integrated with your accounts payable processes.

Both the sourcing process and the scheduling process can be governed using calendar-based program management. Just like good sourcing requires a good project plan with milestones, good event management also requires a solid timeline, with dates that often cannot slip in order to ensure a successful event. The platform allows milestones, tasks, and change orders to be tied to calendar dates to ensure that events get finished on time and that an event manager can see what is due to today and what is coming up. In addition, the integrated user-assigned color coding allows the event manager to see what types of tasks are (coming) due.

There are also strengths in collaborator management, statements of work, analytics, Ariba integration, and payment (including EvedPay that, through a Merchant partnership, allows event managers to use pre-paid debit cards that can be tracked through the platform using a p-Card type system). For more details on these strengths, and some of the unique Eved platform offerings, check out the recent Pro series by the doctor and the prophet over on Spend Matters Pro (membership required) [Part I]. The insights provided in this piece, particularly those straight from the prophet, are worth the long multi-part series read.