Category Archives: Procurement Innovation

iValua: Proving Their Mettle with Source to Settle, Part I

When we last covered iValua in 2010, they were one of the few providers tackling end-to-end sourcing and procurement in a single suite of integrated modules built on one common platform. We noted in Tackling End-to-End Sourcing and Procurement, Part I that this French company had capabilities that, at least to some degree, addressed each of the core phases of the basic sourcing-and-procurement cycle except decision optimization and tax reclamation. The platform still doesn’t address decision optimization, but in the past three years, in addition to adding considerable intelligence for tracking and managing taxes, ASN (Advanced Shipping Notice) support, and customizable pivot-tables for bid and auction analysis, they’ve made extensive additions to many of their modules, added powerful workflow capabilities, extremely powerful UI customization capabilities in Design Mode (considering the platform is accessed through a standard web browser), drag-and-drop document authoring capability (also through the web browser) and round-trip integration with Microsoft Word, a comprehensive supplier view (that integrates all of the data related to the supplier across all of the modules), and the ability to easily define and load custom data tables for surveys, questionnaires, tracking, and reporting through built-in native ETL tools, among other enhancements.

Version 8.0 of the iValua platform, being released at the start of Q4, is one of the most extensive integrated native Source-to-Settle platforms that SI has ever seen, especially considering their recent additions for the management of services. It comes as no surprise that they now have over 100 customers globally with a 99% renewal rate, that the majority of their customers have migrated to their SaaS platform, and that their current growth rate year-over-year is over 20%. Along with bPack and Wallmedien, they are making a serious play to take over the high-end of the Best-of-Breed market that was almost eliminated (with the exception of BravoSolution, that does have industry leading decision optimization) with the acquisitions of Ariba and Emptoris. (It truly looks like the European providers are starting to pull ahead of the pack where Spherical Supply Solutions — Part I, Part II, and Part III — are concerned.)

iValua divides their platform into Supplier Management, Sourcing, Contract Management, Catalog Management, Procurement, Invoice Management, Expense Management, Reporting, and Administration. So we will cover the highlights of the platform with respect to each of these categories. Note that, in addition to the application dashboard, each of these modules has their own dashboard that is extensively configurable so that a user can quickly see the status of supplier efforts, sourcing projects, contracts under construction, procurement processes, catalog integration, invoice processing, expense and budget management, and performance reports.

Supplier Management

Supplier Management in the iValua platform consists of Supplier Registration, Supplier Performance Management, Supplier (Related) Document Management, approved Supplier Lists, and Supplier Risk Profiles (called Supplier Risk Indicators). The on-boarding process is similar to the process employed by other SRM vendors, document management is the process of tracking certifications, proof of insurance, and compliance documentation, and approved supplier list management is quite straight-forward so we won’t go into any additional details on this functionality. What is interesting, and powerful, is the ability to identify and track anomalies from expected performance, create improvement plans, and access a supplier risk profile based on environmental, CSR, and other user-defined indicators, as this is functionality typically only found in SRM platforms, and not sourcing, procurement, or source-to-settle platforms.

The supplier management tab integrates all of the data associated with a supplier across the entire platform. The user can quickly access the basic info (name, address, credentials, risk score, etc.), the lifecycle workflows associated with that supplier (with respect to sourcing projects), the supplier’s credentials, associated users, pre-defined reports and analytics with respect to the supplier’s performance, current activity, commodities and services being provided, financial and risk KPIs, and overall performance and risk rating. It’s a one-stop SIM/SPM shop.

In iValua, an improvement plan, which can be created off of an anomaly (which is a user-defined record that describes an issue that needs to be addressed, such as an exceptional late delivery, quality problem, etc.) and associated with a commodity and/or organization, is an action plan designed to address an (underlying) issue (that caused the anomaly). It consists of a sequence of defined tasks that are expected to resolve the issue. Each task has a type, an associated user who is responsible for the task, a manager who will ensure the task is completed, start and end dates, and other attributes consistent with the definition of a project in a standard project management application. It’s interactive, and as steps are completed, the plan, and status thereof, are updated.

The supplier risk profile capability is quite advanced. A user can define any type of risk that they wish to track (supplier, product, sustainability, financial, product, etc.), how the risk indicator rolls up (finance, CSR, etc.), and where it comes from. iValua integrates with leading risk profile providers out-of-the-box, like D&B, and this integration goes beyond simple financial profile providers and also includes an integration with a leading provider of sustainability data, namely EcoVadis. (You can even access the native EcoVadis profile direct.)

We’ll cover the remaining parts of the platform in the remainder of this series. Come back tomorrow!

Nipendo: Streamlined Invoice Management for Even the Largest Organization

When we introduced Nipendo last month, a provider of order-to-payment automation software, we noted that they were bringing O2P and P2P to the Mainstream and that they recently introduced rules-based end-to-end invoice reconciliation. In Nipendo’s platform, invoices can come in through the portal, web services, EDI, supported supplier networks, and Nipendo’s own Print-to-Cloud solution. The invoice data is then processed and normalized into the Nipendo system, compared against purchase order data, and validated against a complete suite of rules that include data format validation, vendor data validation, referenced document (orders and receipts) validation, tax validation, quantity validation, amount validation, and total validation. If anything is off, it is pushed to a queue for manual verification or correction. These rules can be custom configured as needed and can include automatic data normalization and completion when the purchase order and / or good receipt document can be identified and the line item data accessed.

When this invoice verification and automation is combined with their supplier on-boarding process, their customers, which include a large number of Fortune 500 and Global 3000 Multinationals, quickly reach the point where:

  • 98%+ of all invoices flow through the system,
  • 99%+ of all errors are caught,
  • 90%+ of all invoices are automatically processed without human intervention, and
  • 80%+ process savings are realized and maintained.

Even their largest multi-national Fortune 500 customer reached this point within 24 months, with 80%+ of all invoices flowing through the system in 12 months. A lot of organizations offer e-invoicing, but not all offer all of the invoice submission options of Nipendo and even less reach the level of processing and automation that Nipendo has reached. It’s an impressive Order-to-Payment (O2P) solution.

Is Your Financial Performance Lagging?

Even if it is not, you might want to consider BravoSolution’s and Basware‘s upcoming webinar on Five Untapped Methods to Improve Financial Performance. Hosted by Mickey North Rizza, former Gartner and AMR Research Analyst with over two decades of supply chain experience, you know that this webinar taking place next Wednesday, August 21 @ 11:00 am PDT / 2:00 pm EDT is going to be filled with useful information.

All you have to do is look at the statistics. Research has demonstrated that leading companies that improve their Purchase to Pay processes find operational savings that can exceed 40% and that those who also implement end-to-end Source-to-Settle processes (with smartly linked Sourcing and Procurement) see an average 14.6% increase in operating margin and a 12.8% ROIC (Return on Capital Invested). Given the increasingly low returns in cash-based investments, pursuing this opportunity should be a top priority.

It’s 24/7 for Robbie and the Coupa Factory, Part II

In Part I we announced that Coupa has been coding up a storm since we last checked in on them last summer (in Robbie and the Coupa Factory), completing Release 9 with major enhancements in expense management, invoice management, and catalog management; the android app; and the first version of their new sourcing module as well as some major improvements to their cart that will show up in release 10 later this quarter. Today, we will discuss the major improvements in Release 9 around expense management, invoicing, and catalog management.

The major changes in Expense Management focus around rapid entry and ease-of-use. Designed to work with their Mobile Expense Reporting app for iOS and Android, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for a user to:

  • capture their expenses with easy line item entry,
  • submit their expenses into the system with one button submit,
  • get a scanned copy of their receipt into the system by a single click with the smart phone camera, and
  • get an approval, rejection, or hold for further information by an approver who can also approve, reject, or hold on the go.

In addition, the expense module makes it easy for an approver to:

  • see expenses by day as the system can automatically itemize multi-day expenses like hotel bills and compute the average cost per day,
  • see expenses against budgets and benchmarks to see if a user is spending more or less than the company budget and/or industry average, and
  • stop fraud in its tracks as the expense report audit feature automatically detects missing receipts and/or line items, expenses over category maximums, expense similarity across expense reports, and audit score history.

Catalog Management has also been improved as well, with a big focus on usability and flexibility, with the most significant improvements in the free-form request capability. The reality is that no matter how many vendor catalogs you integrate with, you’re never going to be able to buy everything out of a catalog. Temporary labour, event catering, moving services, etc. just aren’t in your Staples or CDW punch-out. However, you still need to get all external spend flowing through the e-Procurement solution if you ever hope to get that Spend Under Management, widen the funnel, and increase the contribution you make Straight to the Bottom Line.

If the service, or product, you need is not in the catalog, it’s easy to create a requisition and route it to the appropriate manager for approval. All a user needs to do is define the product or service required (using a free-form description if necessary) and any additional information that is known, such as price (range), need by date, (preferred) payment terms, (preferred) supplier(s), etc. and the request is routed to the appropriate approver in the appropriate department, and, if necessary, up the approval chain. In addition, if a match is made on the free form text, the product or service recommendations are automatically displayed. Also, Coupa has built in the ability to do dynamic real-time comparisons on multiple items brought up during a search. A user just has to select / de-select the products or services of interest and they are compared, in a grid-like manner, on all attributes defined for the product or service of interest.

This takes us to invoicing, which is where the most significant improvements to the existing platform occurred. Coupa has also realized that e-Procurement doesn’t deliver savings unless the end-to-end Procurement cycle is automated. In Procurement, a significant amount of the time is spent entering, reconciling, and approving invoices. Savings come from automating the entry, reconciliation, and approval of invoices that match purchase orders which have been appropriately approved. So, in addition to the XML and EDI submission options, the Coupa Supplier Network, and the ability to send scanned invoices through 3rd party OCR networks, Coupa has created a new tab-based quick entry invoice module that can be used by supplier AR clerks and buyer AP clerks to quickly create an invoice using the tab-based entry system that finance people are accustomed to. Plus, the system supports full invoice matching and exception handling at the line item level. If something doesn’t match, an exception is generated and an alert is displayed to the appropriate approver who can review the alert, and depending on the nature of the exception, either approve (if it was an approved cost increase), send it back for more information (if a new item appears), or reject it (if the quantities, etc. don’t match). As per our recent piece on Points to Ponder when People are Pushing Off Procurement Platforms, it has to be automated, it has to be usable, and it has to work. And it does.

Come back Monday for our next post where we’ll cover the new Sourcing Module, which is the most significant new addition to the Coupa platform in a number of years.

It’s 24/7 for Robbie and the Coupa Factory, Part I

Since we last checked in on Robbie and the Coupa Factory last summer, the Coupa Oompa-Loompas have been coding up a storm developing Release Nine, in full deployment, and the upcoming Release Ten, to be released in Q4. Even though it’s been almost four years since we had Davie and the Coupa Factory and seven years since we had Procurement Independence, the Oompa-Loompas are coding like they’re still a start-up trying to build a product to take on the big guys, even though they’re already there with over 350 customers that do business in 17 languages, 40 countries, and 150 currencies with over 650,000 suppliers. It’s time to update the song (which first appeared in Davie and the Coupa Factory)!

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-de-do
We can’t stop building products for you!
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dah-dee
If you are wise you’ll try it for free.

What do you get when you have lots of cash?
Filling coffers and enlarging the stash?
Teams of developers who never sleep.
Making the app work on Android’s heap.

For accessibility.

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-dar
If you are willing, you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dee-do

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-de-do
We’re at release nine but we can not stop.
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dah-dock
Coding improvements around the clock.

Rapid expenses, enforced policies.
Frictionless invoices, support for AP.
Enhanced catalogs, a universal cart.
Taking Procurement to state of the art.

As we make your process smart.

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-de-dart
But here at Coupa, that’s just the start.
Now you will source in happiness too.
Like the Oompa-Loompa doom-pa-dee-do

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-de-do
We now have new e-Sourcing for you.
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-de-door
It’s integrated, savings will soar.

We’re Source to Procure, and Procure to Source.
We’re true end-to-end, ’cause we stay the course.
To get all your spend managed for you.
Is the goal of the Oompa Loompa too.

Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-de-do
We can’t stop bulding products for you!
Oompa Loompa Doom-pa-dah-dee
If you are wise you’ll try it for free.

Just like the original, this is to the tune of the Oompa Loompa chant, as first heard in Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Come back tomorrow for a deep(er) foray into Release 9!