Category Archives: Technology

EPEAT: Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool

EPEAT, short for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, designed to identify high-performance, environmentally friendly computer equipment through an online, searchable database, goes live today.

As per a recent press release, “The database lists products that meet the tough new green computer standard for desktop computers, laptops, and monitors. EPEAT is as easy-to-use evaluation tool that allows the comparison and selection of electronic products based on environmental attributes, in addition to cost and performance considerations. EPEAT-registered products meet minimum performance standards in areas such as energy efficiency, toxicity reduction and material selection.”

In addition, “EPEAT is already referenced in $32.25 billion worth of computer contracts, including contracts issued by the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the City of San Jose, California.”

As you are well aware, I am a big fan of going and staying green, so I applaud the construction of a publicly available resource such as this.

More information is available on the website, and, according to the press release I received, if you still have questions, you can contact Kiren Gopal.

And the (technology) brain-drain is finally official …

Today Emptoris (acquired by IBM, sunset in 2017) finally announces what we’ve all known for a long time (see David’s post on e-Sourcing Forum back in February), that it has acquired MindFlow Technologies, a leader in inbound supply chain planning and sourcing optimization.  I’m going to refrain from commenting at this time*, but say that I’m pleased that a North American company acquired MindFlow, because in today’s economy, brain-drain is a global phenomenon and I personally think that the last thing you want is your country’s best and brightest packing up and moving halfway around the globe after a merger or acquisition!

The press release should be up on their site by the time you read this, so you can check it out at your leisure.  They are also announcing a new service offering, Overdrive, to help companies drive adoption and accelerate the business impact of Emptoris solutions.  The offering includes assessment tools, adoption workshops, analytical reporting, and access to a knowledge sharing user community with benchmarking metrics.  I’m sure my fellow blogger Jason Busch over at SpendMatters will have a few gems to offer on this last topic, as it’s part of his vision for next generation on-demand spend management solutions#, so I’d keep a close eye on his blog to see what he has to say.

Personally, I think Overdrive is a step in the right direction for Emptoris.  They’ve done a great job acquiring companies with leading solutions in various areas of sourcing, and recently produced an integrated solution through SAP NetWeaver, but technology is only part of the solution.  Knowing how to apply it for maximum benefit is the other half.  I’m interested to see what happens next.

* However I did comment on Jason Busch’s take, Old News Keeps Flowing#, which I recommend you check out.  (CombineNet, acquired by Jaggaer in 2013, has even chimed in!)

# Link no longer available.  All posts pre-2012 disappeared with the site revamp in June 2023.

Staying Green

About a month ago in my Sourcing Innovation series, I wrote a post entitled Green with Envy that described the many benefits a buying organization can achieve by “going green“.

It looks like this trend is here to stay. In Wired’s recent article “Carbon Killers”, they point out that for some companies, going green is generating serious greenbacks.

GE has currently pledged to roll back their greenhouse gas emissions 1 percent by 2012 (as compared to a projected rise of 40 percent). Why? In addition to reducing waste, reducing energy costs, avoiding environmental taxes, and reducing production cycles, green policies are starting to pay huge dividends in public relations and marketing buzz. For example, FedEx has announced plans to cut emissions through the use of hybrid delivery trucks. Furthermore, the global market’s appetite for green technology is heating up. If you are a US multi-national, chances are you want to do business in Europe and Asia, regions that have not only accepted, but are enforcing, the limits on greenhouse gases imposed by the Kyoto Protocol. (With 164 countries agreeing to the protocol, it’s not something you can ignore if you want to do business globally.)

After all, with the climate already changing thanks to global warming, as per this recent CNET news article, the smart money eyes climate change. The smart companies are trying to mitigate risk and seeking out opportunities in fields such as clean energy. Climate change and associated policies that arise to deal with it are going to fundamentally alter the makeup of many world economies. Companies that fail to embrace this coming change will probably lose out in the long run, therefore going green now is a good way to ensure a successful future.

Fortunately, going and staying green is becoming a whole lot easier with technologies produced by companies such as Atlanta-based CoalTek Inc.. CoalTek has developed a patent-pending technology that can convert raw-coal into “designer coal”, by way of electromagnetics, that contains less moisture, ash, sulfer and mercury. This allows the coal to burn more efficiently and cleanly, reducing energy costs and pollution. CoalTek is not alone. Denver-based KFx Inc. is also in the clean coal market. Furthermore, earlier this year Southern Co. and the US Department of Energy launched a $557M coal gasification project in Central Florida designed to produce the “cleanest, most efficient facility” in the world when it is completed in 2010.

Furthermore, as the CNET article points out, like health issues related to asbestos and tobacco did in the past, climate change could lead to lawsuits and target companies that either contribute to global warming or did not take sufficient steps to address regulations.

Product Information Management

Product Information Management, or PIM, according to Wikipedia, refers to the providing of product information for use in one or more output media and/or distribution channels, potentially involving multiple geographic locations. It involves ensuring that all of the data in your different systems, and those of the parties you interact with, is synchronous and synonymous. Even though it sounds like an easy problem to solve, just reference a master copy, it is still one of the biggest supply chain challenges. Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies on SupplyChainBrain.com magazine recently ran an article entitled “The Long Journey Toward One Version Of The Truth” describing how the inefficiencies in product information management are significant contributors to supply chain inefficiency and that data synchronization, internally and externally, can significantly help companies achieve one version of the truth.

PIM sounds simple enough:

  1. link to third party and legacy applications and import data into a centralized model,
  2. transform data by identifying and resolving duplicates and errors and enrich the data with external info, and
  3. synchronize the data by capturing all updates into the central master and pushing updates to the linked applications,

but when you consider that many organizations have dozen of systems with dozens of data formats and protocols for interfaces, its quite a challenge – especially when your suppliers, customers, and partners use different systems with different data formats and protocols.

I think the future of PIM lies in the exchange – where a third party maintains the master product information on behalf of a supplier and all of the users subscribe to this party to obtain the correct data. However, this does not resolve the integration issue, but I think this issue will eventually go away as on-demand SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) goes mainstream and the True SaaS providers integrate to the exchanges on your behalf.

After all, as reiterated in the article, the benefits are clear and well documented and include increased sales due to faster time to market, improved on-shelf product availability, improved productivity in the maintenance and publication of product masters, fewer errors to reconcile, lower transportation costs as a result of lower error rates, and more tax credits due to the ease in which they can be identified.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

The Elite (Supply Chain Technology) Consolidator’s Menu

Last week, in No Prix Fix Here: A Consolidator’s Menu Part 1 and Part 2*, Jason Busch of Spend Matters, despite his general skepticism of technology acquisitions, outlined a number of opportunities in the spend management sector that might just be “too good to pass up”. As always, most of these were prime specimens. However, I think a few good morsels were left off the consolidator’s menu and think some of the offerings require a better description if the goal truly is to wet the palette.

Jason started of with the amuse bouche and recommended the last remaining stand-alone spend visibility powerhouse, Zycus , a vendor with strong classification, analysis, and services capability (not to mention a good story to tell for SAP customers) . A fine choice indeed, but let’s not forget TrueSource (acquired by Procuri in 2006, Procuri acquired by Ariba in 2007, Ariba acquired by SAP in 2012) even though it appears they may have been ordered already.

For an appetizer, Jason offered a contract management company and a quartet of on-demand offerings. Let’s start with contract management. Although a sophisticated palette might prefer Nextance (acquired by Versata in 2007, a riskier palette might want to try Upside (acquired by SciQuest in 2012, rebranded as Jaggaer in 2017), a new taste sensation from the North. With respect to the on-demand offerings, I think a more refined description is required before a choice can be made. For a light appetite Hedgehog and Iasta (acquired by Selectica, merged with bPack, renamed Determine, which was acquired by Corcentric) are the true choices, having been designed as on-demand from the ground up. However, when comparing Hedgehog and Iasta, it’s like comparing chips and salsa to oysters rockefeller and caviar.  Whereas chips and salsa will leave you hungry for the main course, the oysters rockefeller would be a full meal on its own for many!  Hedgehog has a lightweight auction offering while Iasta has a full end-to-end strategic sourcing offering that covers the full executeable strategic sourcing cycle (at least in my book). VerticalNet (acquired by BravoSolution in 2008, BravoSolution acquired by Jaggaer in 2017) and GEP are much heavier fare, with their on-demand offerings coming later in the game.  Furthermore, with their large customer bases, and significantly higher (venture) capital investments, Vertical Net and Global eProcure may only be tempting to those with heartier appetites.  However, there are still some significant differences between these two players.  Even though Global eProcure has a number of services offices all over the globe (including China and India), they focussed on breadth to Vertical Net’s depth.  Furthermore, the spend and performance management offerings of VerticalNet might be more soothing to those who tend to get heartburn even thinking about global low cost country sourcing.  And for those with a hefty appetite, I’d make it a quintet and add Procuri (acquired by Ariba in 2007, Ariba acquired by SAP in 2012) to the mix as one of the few pure-play on-demand solutions on the market.  Finally, for those with an appetite for supply risk management, let’s add Apexon (acquired and merged with Infostretch in 2022) to the menu in addition to Vendor Mate and JV Kelly.

Now on to the main courses for our potential consolidators.

For Salesforce.com, Jason offered up Procuri and Ketera (acquired by Deem in 2010). Both fine choices, but I have to wonder, given the depth of their competitive offering, why Iasta was left off this menu?

For SAP and Oracle, Jason offers Rearden Commerce (rebranded as Deem in 2012), an exquisite choice for such discerning diners. However, I’d want to insure that meal consisted of one of the on-demand appetizers and was followed by a specialty consulting desert such as Aptium Global to help them weave affordable solutions for the small and mid-size markets.

For Ariba., although Jason is most likely too modest to ever add his own company, Azul Partners (replaced with Spend Matters), to the desert menu (or at least a service company with a similar marketing and messaging focus), it would certainly be the creme-de-la-creme for Ariba, a company that should be dining with a fatter wallet. After all, when research has demonstrated that Ariba users are “out-performing their peers in multiple areas” (link/research no longer available), with the exception of the true on-demand diners (such as Iasta and Procuri) which help buyers get more spend under management more quickly then traditional solutions (see “The On-Demand Supply Management Benchmark Report: Enterprises Turn to the Web and Find Quicker and Better ROI to Help Achieve Supply Management Goals” by Aberdeen), there should definitely be less diners in our elite specialty restaurant, especially in the traditional installed arena.

Finally, for Procuri, I would recommend it gobble up every small on-demand friendly services provider it can afford, for their customer bases, before SalesForce.com decides its dinner time!

* Links no longer available. All articles pre-2012 disappeared with the Spend Matters site update in June 2023.