The Procurement Software Podcast

This week we’ve got a sponsored episode, welcoming back a guest we last spoke to in September 2021, Henning Hatje from Lhotse.

Lhotse has a tactical and tail spend solution, which they see as something complementary to a legacy suite based approach. So if you've spent a lot of money investing in one of these suites and you're not likely to change provider, or maybe your company has a strategy to use a specific ecosystem that matches and ties in with your ERP (not naming names!), then this solution could be for you.

Lhotse pivots to enterprise with a new solution

I welcome Henning back to the podcast and mention how, since he was last on the show, he’s been busy making changes to Lhotse that he’s very excited to share.

He talks about how Lhoste have been securing funding, scaling their team, refining their value proposition and pivoting their target market over the last eight to ten months.

Lhotse now have enterprise size organisations squarely in their sites. Henning explains how the team realised that Lhotse works best when implemented in large, existing structures like the ones mentioned in the podcast’s intro - for example SAP Ariba. Not so much as a standalone solution, but rather as an integrated solution that operates in the background of those legacy systems.

Henning explains how these legacy systems don’t cover tactical spend well, and are often cumbersome to use from a UX standpoint. I ask him what makes Lhoste different, and how it can meet the kind of requirements that today's customer is demanding.

He explains that Lhotse’s new approach hopes to supercharge procurement systems, working on two main axes:

One focusing on the operative procurement teams, the spot by teams, the tactical teams, making their life easier and more efficient, bringing efficiency levers to their daily life, in terms of execution;

And one focusing on the requester, the business users that are spread across the organisation. Henning  says that business users never enjoy these big suites, because they’re made for experts, not occasional users.

Although we both think that these big suites do have upsides, and we shouldn’t beat them up too much, we both agree that UX makes them very intimidating for new users.

For tactical spend and tail spend, users need a system that's intuitive, because if they don't have that, it results in maverick spend.

Why do things this way, as opposed to just connecting catalogues?

I put forward a logical challenge to Henning: Why wouldn't you then just just connect a bunch of punch out catalogues with something like Ariba, or one of these big suites? Where is the gap between what Lhotse does and what and what a punch out catalogue running into one of these suites can offer?

He explains that the chief benefit is central coordination and easy searchability. Lhotse can harmonise across catalogues, giving an integration layer that combines the process of searching for something, no matter if it's a catalog item, or a free text request that will go out to suppliers to get quotes.

While common, repeatable spend might benefit from a catalogue approach, not all spend is of this kind. So Lhotse is also useful when it comes to non-repeatable spend - for example a marketing assistant buying conference meeting rooms. Unique spend like this is common, and no-one wants to use a static, unintuitive catalog for these sorts of purchases.

Examples - How Lhotse could help your organisation

What does the process look like for tactical and tail spend in a poorly managed organisation, and by contrast, what does the same process look like when using Lhotse?

He proposes an example where a company is using Ariba: They get a first quote, put it into the system as a free text request, and then put this to the procurement team to action. In this example, the procurement team is effectively doing a job a robot could do. They're not even sourcing, just converting a purchase rack into a purchase order.

However, with Lhotse integrated into SAP, Ariba, it will take a requisition and identify whether it's something that should be converted into a purchase order with the vendor, or if it's something that warrants a bit more activity in terms of sourcing. And then if the buyer doesn't necessarily know who to source it from, it has a basic supplier scouting functionality built into it.

I ask Henning whether this can find new vendors, or is strictly limited to those that companies are already using.

He says that Lhotse can do this, but most customers would rather stay with their onboarded suppliers, especially in tail spend, where most look to consolidate rather than add.

Cost of integration - saving time, saving money

I ask Henning what it takes to integrate Lhotse into the existing systems of large enterprises. Will they need external consultancy and extra IT specialists, or should they be able to handle themselves?

He’s confident that any company big enough to have its own team to manage systems can handle integration themselves. Which is of course good to know because, especially now in such an inflationary market, budgets are tight. So if anything can be done in house, that's always a big selling point.

ESG Compliance - How Lhoste handles the elephant in the room

Looking at the market that Lhotse is now playing into, the elephant in the room is obviously ESG. All of these big corporations are putting a lot of focus now in terms of ESG, and additional compliance in that area. I ask Henning how Lhotse works with external ESG systems and sources like Ecovadis.

He says that this is very important to where Lhotse is heading. Ultimately, concerns around ESG compliance are becoming huge drivers in decision making, and only stand to become more so in future.

To this end, Lhotse is supercharging the way it handles ESG data, making sure that whenever a purchasing decision made, whoever is in charge in that particular situation has these data points transparent, to implement them in their in their decision making. This doesn't kill the need for a post assessment of your environmental footprint, or how your supply chain is dealing with certain regulations and compliance regulations. But it helps you to make compliance-savvy decisions along the way.

I agree that this is really important. If a company is going to get caught up in any scandals, or in any issues, around ESG it's typically going to come from the long tail, because obviously, they're the suppliers that aren’t being actively managed.

If companies are going to get tripped up, it's not going to come from the suppliers that are under control. This goes for every organisation, even at an enterprise level, so I think that's a really important point on ESG.

Henning goes on to say that, while ESG is maybe not the volume driver in terms of euros or dollars, in terms of transactions and business relationships, it's the majority. A few good decisions in this area can give a real strategic edge to your organisation. And that’s what Lhotse can help with.

If you, for example, say that in any kind of sourcing event, the suppliers need to have an Ecovadis score of at least 60 or so then you can have this as a parameter in your calibration for loads. Then you already have better recommendations of which suppliers are actually suitable for you or not. Obviously this requires the best data available too, which is a process in itself, but Henning says that Lhotse is making great progress in that direction, especially due to external data providers like IntegrityNext and Ecovadis.

Lhotse Live Demo!

We round off the episode by talking about our upcoming live demo of Lhotse, which you can sign up for using the links below.

https://procurementsoftware.webinargeek.com/lhotsedemo

Many thanks to Henning for coming back on the Podcast, and we’ll see you next time!

Stay in touch

Connect with Henning on Linkedin

Visit Lhotse's website

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market

Download our Tech Map for SMEs

Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app

Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter

Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!

Connect with James on LinkedIn

This week we're taking on a very relevant topic in today's marketplace. Given the current supply chain crisis and geopolitical instability, what better time to speak to a guest from a unique eSourcing solution?

Alan Holland, CEO of Keelvar, is here to tell us how AI can offer something more immediate, spot and transactional, in these unstable times when agility matters.

Keelvar - bot technology for spot sourcing

Alan begins by giving us a rundown of Keelvar - who it serves and how it works.

Alan explains how his background in a university computer science department inspired Keelvar, and how his knowledge in AI has enabled him to develop a platform for sourcing excellence, that scales to any size of transaction.

Recognising the importance of data... finally!

Alan got into procurement after watching his PhD students making requests from chemical companies. It was a chaotic process, and as a computer scientist he identified it immediately as a data problem: Much richer information needed to be collected from suppliers, and data processes needed to be much more efficient.

He explains a win/win situation here - with both buyers and suppliers benefiting from richer, more detailed data. This was how things got started for Keelvar.

Optimising spot sourcing, as opposed to long-term tenders

I ask Alan about Keelvar's unique focus: Optimising spot sourcing.

Using ocean freight as an example, Alan begins by explaining what makes Keelvar stand out from its competitors.

On the one side, there are strategic sourcing events that take a long time (often months) to complete. For these, Keelvar stands out by offering the most flexibility and detail.

The other major challenge in ocean freight is change - be that rates, network requirements or ports. Every day you're going back to market with mini tenders to adapt to these changes. Keelvar has sourcing bots that can automate this process, and provide great flexibility in customising this automation.

We talk about the difference between ocean freight and other areas such as consumer goods, highlighting how much flexibility and agility matter in an ever-changing marketplace.

Predictability vs flexibility in ocean freight

Many freight handlers reward predictability through their pricing.

I ask Alan how Keelvar, which by nature doesn't provide that kind of predictability, can still create value when it comes to ocean freight.

Alan explains how this capability is embedded in the sourcing bots: When requests come in, if there is predictability in the demand pattern, then that is gathered at the request stage and shared with the carriers.

How does Keelvar deal with charges at port?

Alan explains that each of Keelvar's customers has great flexibility in how they want to design their bid sheet.

Each sourcing bot asks for different things.

If you determine that port handling fees are cost elements that should be included in the overall offer, carriers can't submit a bid without including those fees.

What is the biggest win offered by Keelvar?

Is it cost, data quality, simplifying processes under one source of truth, or a mixture of all three?

Alan thinks it's a mix of all three, but that time saved is the main thing - with one customer saving 93% of the time and workload required for these mini tenders in ocean freight. He sees this as Keelvar's top benefit.

But other benefits included process consistency, and savings as a result of being able to approach a large number of carriers in parallel. Keelvar makes this kind of scalability easy, allowing you go out to many more suppliers and generate competitive tension in the process.

Keelvar is also fast - there's no time spent waiting for someone in procurement to kick off a mini tender process.

How does reporting work with Keelvar?

All the big data is collected online, so it's not on spreadsheet.

The bot then uses a chat interface with a human approver to offer a choice of available options: From fastest, to most economical, to most environmentally friendly.

You can then request the bot to find a solution that falls between these extremes, and approve it once you're happy.

With ocean freight, you typically have a pool of lanes that are repeatable, from origin to destination, and on the other hand you have completely one-off spot requirements. I ask Alan how Keelvar's sourcing bot can differentiate between the two.

Be it a one-off, a mini-tender, or a long -term agreement, you should be collecting the same information. Therefore the requirements for a sourcing bot are also fairly similar, regardless of the tender at hand. The only change being whether it's a one-off movement or something that's going to repeat for weeks. Then it's up to the carriers to adjust their response accordingly. The processes involved for the bots really don't need to change that much.

Does someone using Keelvar need a good grasp of logistics procurement?

Yes. Any bot is only as smart as the person telling it what to do. Usually the person approving suggested actions from the bot will need a competent overview of the procurement process they're dealing with.

Simple factors like 'shortest route' can be calculated mathematically, but nuanced factors like CO2 emissions will require personnel to make the final call.

There's only so much machines can do in place of human judgement.

However, there is an emerging process where the bot becomes more tightly integrated with your data sources.

Bots can use third party data sources to ascertain more information than you might think - which vessel will be used? What's it's age? These factors can give you an idea on emissions, and so it is possible, by being extremely qualitative, to train the bots to apply bias here.

The future of Keelvar

A feature we could see in the near future are FCL and LCL bots who learn to talk to each other, and that are able to handle conditional, "if x then y" scenarios. Alan sees this as a natural next step.

Beyond ocean freight – Keelvar and other categories

For a final question I ask Alan about other categories outside of ocean freight where Keelvar has been a success.

Large retailers, automotive, consumer goods - all use Keelvar for categories such as packaging, temporary labour, steel parts, fuel, and electricity. There are many spend categories with complex cost structures, that require either/or decisions, and these are where Keelvar delivers most benefit.

Keelvar can be applied to direct and indirect categories, which is quite unique. Most high end sourcing solutions tend to focus on one or the other.

Stay in touch!

Connect with Alan on LinkedIn

Visit Keelvar's website

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market

Download our Tech Map for SMEs

Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app

Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter

Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!

Connect with James on LinkedIn

Digital transformation doesn't necessarily have to be complex. Sometimes, an end-to-end source-to-pay (S2P) solution that joins up the dots, and automates a lot of otherwise manual processes, can give a huge productivity advantage.

The mid market has traditionally been underserved by procurement software, with tech companies typically going after large enterprise clients at their expense.

One of the older players in the European market is Onventis, who have successfully been improving and extending their offering since 2000 and successfully serving mid-market businesses. My guest today is their CEO, Frank Schmidt.

Providing a solid solution for source-to-pay in the mid market - Onventis has survived and thrived

Frank's audio unfortunately is pretty bad, so apologies for that ahead of the interview. We did the best we could.

Who is the target market for Onventis?

Mid-sized businesses for Onventis are those who fall into the bracket of internationally active manufacturing companies with an annual turnover of EUR 100 million to EUR 1.5 billion (approx. $110 million to $1.65 billion). Although they have customers who are much bigger than this too.

What does their suite cover?

At its core, Onventis is a source-to-pay suite but its functionality is more wide reaching than this. Their sourcing module goes right through to offer auctions, as well as basic contract management functionality.

There are also additional applications covering supplier and risk management, as well as the catalogues and e-procurement functionality associated with the traditional full stack P2P offerings.

How do they fare against some of the enterprise suites?

Frank agrees that towards the upper end of their customer base, they are playing on the same turf as some of the more well-known enterprise level procurement suite providers.

There has already been a lot of consolidation in this market, and Onventis has also been no stranger to this.

Their recent acquisition of Swedish spend analytics platform Spendency, along with an invoice automation platform called Workflow Wise who were acquired by Onventis two years ago. My interview with Arvid Fredin, who was Spendency's CEO prior to the acquisition, can be found in Episode 24 of the podcast.

As a German company, it's no surprise to learn that 70% of Onventis' customers are in a SAP ecosystem. This enables them to offer fully standardised integration with SAP, when so much of their business comes from customers already using SAP as their ERP system. Coming into contact with Ariba and Coupa is also commonplace.

Why go for a suite vs. 2 or 3 best-of-breed solutions bolted together?

Customers in this segment are always somewhat more price sensitive than enterprise customers, and the "time to value" is key in terms of seeing the ROI on their investment.

Time to implementation is key, as is the ability to pick and choose which modules of the suite to purchase in the initial phase. Customers often want to see proof of concept or run a pilot and to see a positive return on their price to performance ratio.

Offering modularity allows companies to tackle their digital transformation in a piece-by-piece way by capturing the most added value at first and then building on this.

How much greenfield business is still out there?

There isn't much greenfield business out there, which kind of surprised me a little when Frank said this. Most of the business they see is replacement business or expansion business in one form or another.

Frank sees a lot of legacy tech, fragmented systems and botched transformations out there. Much of the technology is siloed, such as invoice automation in Accounts Payable, which is an area they often come across and are asked to consolidate into their suite approach.

There is also a differentiation in the various industry sectors. Industrial manufacturing industries such as automotive are often ahead of their counterparts in service industries, where Frank still sees a fair bit of greenfield business and very immature procurement functions.

He also makes the point that mid-sized businesses are typically leaner and less bureaucratic than large corporates and can implement faster, meaning that decisions are taken on investment rather than being consistently postponed.

What about data quality: Is this an obstacle to sales?

Data is a huge topic, but it's something which procurement teams can no longer ignore. Frank cites the example of the need to make inroads in terms of measuring CO2 reduction as part of companies' sustainability initiatives.

40% of the mid-sized businesses that Onventis surveyed as part of their annual barometer of market research did not have a formal supplier qualification process in place, nor did they have a plan for climate neutral goals.

Frank therefore makes the point that lack of process maturity is arguably a bigger issue than poor quality data.

What explains the lack of process?

It can be a mixture of two things:

A lack of voice for procurement at board level;

Missing digital and data analysis capabilities within procurement teams of this size

Internal SRM systems are usually spreadsheet based and often don't have connections to external data feeds and market intelligence, which can improve and complement the data.

Frank talks a bit about the forthcoming supply chain law in Germany, the "Lieferkettengesetz", which comes into force in January 2023.

How does implementation differ based on different customers and industry sectors?

While there will always be challenges and differences in the sales process and cycle between different sectors and procurement maturity, Frank sees the biggest challenge almost universally to be the change management and digital skills capabilities within procurement teams.

Getting to the sale is one thing, but there seems to consistently be a skills shortage when it comes to the hard digital skills, along with the soft skills of change management, communication and influence.

Acknowledging this has led Onventis to include their implementation consulting team as part of the sales process.

Depending on where a customer has the most pain will usually dictate the departments and stakeholders who are heavily involved in the sourcing process.

70% of the requests and sales enquiries they see are actually originating from procurement teams, even if the push is coming from e.g. the need for more invoice automation which is typically managed by finance.

What about their technology roadmap

Frank cites three key areas where they are developing or improving:

Working with their supplier network to ensure that the platform remains competitive for a UX perspective for sellers to use. Catalogue integration and usability is a key area of focus. They have a direct integration with Amazon business and generic search APIs across other networks and marketplace platforms to enable guided buying.

Opening their network to third party platforms to enable enrichment of supplier data as part of SRM enhancements and ongoing need to have more transparency and improved data reliability for ESG initiatives.

Growing out the AI capabilities of Spendency, their recent spend analytics acquisition, and integrating this into the wider Onventis modular offering.

Stay in touch!

Connect with Frank on LinkedIn

Visit Onventis' website

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market

Download our Tech Map for SMEs

Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app

Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter

Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!

Connect with James on LinkedIn

My guest this week on The Procuretech Pub requires no introduction to anyone who is familiar with the digital procurement space. Dr. Elouise Epstein is Partner at Kearney in San Francisco and author of the book Trade Wars, Pandemics and Chaos: How Digital Procurement Enables Business Success in a Disordered World.

We have an informal and very open discussion about procurement technology's past, present and what direction the future trends are moving in this space.

Procuretech's evolution, where it's at and where we're headed: The Procuretech Pub with Dr. Elouise Epstein

Elouise begins by giving a whistle stop tour of her career and some of the things she's seen in the digital procurement space along the way.

From its beginnings, where best of breed led the way, through the rise of the suites and now to a more emerging hybrid model.

She explains how around 2013, Kearney began receiving calls from enterprises who had implemented what I now often refer to as "legacy suites", saying that users didn't want to use them and they weren't seeing their return on investment. It wasn't really until 2020, where Covid definitely seems to have given the market a push, that organisations started to adopt more of a "platform-based" approach with an increasing emphasis on a best-of-breed tech ecosystem.

Elouise's "spider diagrams" and the current "platform" trend

"The suites failed to deliver and there is legacy sunk cost investment" and as a result of that, often these suites are used as a platform from which companies build out their tech stack.

Elouise is a big critic of the big suite approach and is an advocate of the platform approach, where this is built upon through best-of-breed technology. We just don't have 100% the ideal, perfect platform that we need just yet. The software used as a platform has ended up being in that role kind of by default, and there isn't a system built to act as a platform in its core function just yet.

Building their own platform can also be an option for very large enterprises who have the IT capabilities in-house to do this. This is an approach for the brave / well resourced IT departments, but advantage of this strategy is that each "module" can easily be exchanged. Using a legacy suite as the platform doesn't allow this to happen as easily for P2P, or S2C to some extent.

Will the legacy suites survive this pivot?

I ask Elouise what the future holds for these suite providers with this market backdrop. While the market leaders are secure, especially with SAP Ariba and Coupa having implemented App Stores to allow easy bolt-ons and integrations for best-of-breed solutions, some of the others are "under duress. She sees the suite market as being "propped up" to some extent.

Who will come in to challenge the market leaders? Will someone from outside procuretech come in to challenge them, such as Salesforce or AWS?

And, where will the others go if they survive this? It could be that they pivot more towards the mid market, but that would obviously mean a significant realignment of their pricing model and features offered in order to compete and flourish in this market segment.

How useful or reliable are the "best-of" lists when evaluating the market?

Elouise is openly critical of analysts and consultants in general and sees the hype as being self-serving.

She starts off by saying she's not a fan of 2x2 evaluations because they create artificial markets rather that have to fit into that specific evaluation framework. Much of the innovation doesn't neatly fit into a box, and innovation is constantly changing as the market evolves.

How the data is being used and how the evaluations are put together is important to be able to truly appreciate and evaluate which procurement software is best for a specific business, based on their own unique, individual criteria.

Keeping on top of the market evaluations and maintaining relevance of these lists is a mammoth task. Inevitably, there will be imperfections. The needs and requirements of enterprise level clients will be vastly different to those of the mid market.

Knowing enough to be dangerous and not being completely reliant on the reports and content of third party research is key to leveraging the information they provide, while not blindly trusting it without the adequate due diligence on how it's been put together.

Teach a man to fish...

If they have limited means and limited budget, where does the procurement practitioner start?

There is some up-skilling required. Gone are the days where half an FTE manages digital transformation along with their regular day job as IT Category Manager or Centre of Excellence Leader.

Hiring consultants can often unwittingly foster bias in the process due to "foxes guarding the hen house", where there are systems integrators, analysts and tech providers who are very closely in step with one another.

By not outsourcing the decision making to third parties, this enables the company to reduce the possibility of bias or influence and maintain objectivity and neutrality.

The dangers of sponsored content, and choosing the "safe" option

We discuss how sometimes it's hard to figure out which content is sponsored, and which articles are biased. There is definitely a lack of transparency around who is "paying to play" and how this is documented in content such as white papers, blogs, reports and awards that we see.

While on the one hand, conference sponsors are easy to spot, it also leads to the risks of opting for the safe, established legacy brand which offers less innovation than one of the more disruptive startups.

Sponsorship of expensive events and reports provides a springboard, and while procurement is not the only industry where this happens, it can often stifle innovation.

There's a difference between not getting fired through choosing the safe option, and truly succeeding in your digital transformation by opting for a disruptive .

How will the skill set change for procurement teams?

The skills that Procurement were historically trained on are being digitised. Elouise believes that the Category Manager role will diminish to some extent, although perhaps not in every single category of spend that is managed.

Instead of hiring data scientists to come and do procurement, what is more likely to result in success will be procurement professionals being more open to acquire some of these new skills. That doesn't mean we all have to become programmers and mathematicians, but it certainly requires an up-skilling and an increase in analytical capabilities.

Good user experience and automation is going to be central to how technology is adopted by businesses as we move forward.

Where does procuretech have its biggest growth potential?

Elouise predicts that the mid-market will digitise and adopt this technology faster than enterprise because the growing pains and adjustments have already happened. Also, given the fewer layers of management and shorter decision-making, once a company decides to adopt it, the implementation should happen quicker.

On the enterprise side, the huge sector that is kind of squished under the ESG banner has the biggest potential. Elouise remarks that it's a disservice to categorise everything in this space so generally, and specifically calls out:

Sustainability initiatives

Risk and resilience

Advanced value optimisation / supplier partnerships

She signs off by saying that none of these are first and foremost involved in driving cost savings, and are rather focused on delivering total value and avoiding unexpected costs to the business.

Procurement's reason to exist is to deal with and manage third party vendors, and as such, we're the best department to be leading and driving this space!

Stay in touch!

Connect with Elouise on LinkedIn

Link to Elouise's book

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market

Download our Tech Map for SMEs

Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app

Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter

Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!

Connect with James on LinkedIn

The relationship between Procurement and Legal can often be somewhat strained. Procurement's hands are tied because they have to seek legal support. Legal typically is under-resourced to serve the growing needs of procurement teams, especially when Sales often gets priority in the internal legal support pecking order.

My guest today is Giles Thompson, Chief Growth Officer of London-based contract process automation tool Avvoka. We discuss how both teams can work smarter with the right tech to improve relationships, free up time and ditch the repetitive tasks.

Improving Procurement and Legal team relationships and workflows thanks to automated and smart processes

Giles is a lawyer by trade and educational background, and so is great to approach this discussion from someone on the "other side of the fence" so to speak.

He tells the story of how in his short time dealing with procurement professionals, he often found himself offering the same advice and amending the exact same clauses each time he was asked to get involved in a contract negotiation process.

Avvoka as a solution essentially helps to simplify and automate this process by enabling the buyer (or the seller for that matter) to generate a contract template by answering questions as part of a guided process to determine the risk and thus the level of complexity required in numerous different contract scenarios.

Why is Legal such a bottleneck in large enterprises?

Legal is being asked to weigh in on more and more different processes and requirements, but the headcount is not being increased to the necessary level to cope with this.

Procurement, likewise, is being expected to do more with less, and as such this creates the classic bottleneck and frustration that goes with it.

Whereas in reality, the vast majority of contracts don't need to go to Legal for the green light or for very straightforward, commercially driven amendments. Having the ability to use a self-service portal that generates or inserts the necessary contract clauses depending on the specific requirements can save time, money and unnecessary frustration.

The power of aggregated data

Giles makes a great point that through having a platform that tracks and documents each time a counterparty redlines something in a standard contract or requests changes, this is stored in a central database.

If it's costing time and money to renegotiate a particularly troublesome clause every single contract negotiation, then perhaps there's a valid argument to just swallow this as something that most vendors just won't accept, and move on with a more realistic contract template that's likely to be adopted.

How many times have we clashed heads with different suppliers over the exact same standard contract clause, every single time?! Over time, the template then becomes more workable and less likely to cause conflict during negotiations.

How to simplify and self-serve legal advice to buyers

Often a procurement professional will not feel comfortable negotiating certain (more legal-specific) clauses in a contract. Especially if they don't have a formal procurement or contracting background and have not been trained in commercial contract management.

Giles gives examples of how a tool like Avvoka can enable self-serve advice directly in the platform. He gives the example of liability clauses, and how embedded videos from in-house Legal, along with various different templates, can offer a "grocery store" environment to pick the best clause according to perceived level of risk and buyer vs. supplier power balance within the negotiation.

The classic "work smarter, not harder" opportunity.

Dealing with supplier generated (third party paper) contracts

Avvoka is geared up to work on native contract formats but can also work with third party contracts. Controlling the platform that the contract is being negotiated on can often be a small win, especially if you're forced due to relative supplier power over you as the buyer to work on third party paper.

The collaboration and negotiation function within the platform can speed up and make more transparent the whole process, regardless of the contract format that's being used.

Contract negotiations without a single email being sent?

I ask Giles to walk through a the process of negotiating a fairly standard contract versus a relatively complex IT or professional services contract.

His answer is surprising in that the workflow and steps are pretty similar. It's possible in all cases to complete the end-to-end process in Avvoka and without the need to send emails to and from the supplier.

The final part, which is obviously the approval and signature, can be seamlessly integrated into best-in-class, popular SaaS products such as DocuSign, Adobe Sign and other similar solutions.

But then how many companies are actually mature enough to utilise a tool like Avvoka to its full potential?

There will always be the case that the more mature the organisation in terms of both legal and procurement maturity, the better the solution will work. Nonetheless, there are still advantages to be gained through automation and guided contracting.

The key is having the right contract templates authored, and having buyers who are smart enough to understand which ones should be taken in which scenarios.

A very immature or decentralised procurement team, working with a very skeleton legal department or even external counsels, is going to struggle a lot more than a company that's had a corporate procurement and in-house legal team in situ for a while.

Tracking changes: how and where?

Any changes made to a contract can be done completely within the Avvoka platform.

There is a single source of truth whereby the system will automatically track who has changed what, with a complete control of versions being used. The risk of loss of integrity between switching around different versions of a saved Word document is eliminated through using this, or any other central, cloud-based platform.

Who would Avvoka be suited to?

In theory, it can be used by smaller and medium-sized businesses who would still quickly see a payback. Pricing is based per user and have different scales of packages depending on features and complexity.

There's almost the argument to say the ROI is easier to calculate in organisations that don't have in-house legal teams, because the cost of engaging an external counsel can be reconciled against invoices submitted.

Whereas on the other hand, the savings gained in large enterprises that have an in-house legal department are likely going to be more on the time, performance and efficiency side vs. hard P&L visible benefits.

Stay in touch!

Connect with Giles on LinkedIn

Visit Avvoka's website

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market

Download our Tech Map for SMEs

Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app

Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter

Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!

Connect with James on LinkedIn

We're diving in again to the ever-expanding contract management space this week, looking at a piece of software that straddles the murky waters between procuretech and legaltech.

Redlining and amending contracts is a boring and tedious process to most procurement professionals, but a necessary evil that comes with the territory for commercial contract negotiations post-sourcing and award.

My guest this week to break down how technology can get us to our destination faster is Dan Broderick, CEO and Co-Founder of Washington DC-based legaltech start-up BlackBoiler.

Utilising AI to speed up and simplify your contract clause redlining process

I start off by asking Dan about who he typically sees as being the customer's job title in the roles that they sell to, with this being a more legal-focused solution, and to what extent Procurement features in this. We then move on to some of the key features that BlackBoiler offers to set the scene of what it can actually do to aid us as procurement professionals to speed up an otherwise cumbersome and tedious task.

What is Black Boiler's sweet spot?

There's a lot of contract management software now on the market and it's becoming an increasingly crowded space.

Dan sees BlackBoiler's sweet spot as being a contract negotiation automation software that helps customer and supplier get to the point of a mutually acceptable negotiated position on contracts, through the use of automation on changes to standard contract copy.

This can be applied on both native contracts and third party documents.

Both Legal and Procurement alike are seen to Dan as being potential "buyers" in this space. Also Sales to some extent are involved in the conversation because they're often struggling to conclude contracts fast enough to satisfy customer expectations.

What inspired Dan to found BlackBoiler?

As a lawyer, he found that he was often tasked with negotiating contracts that were very similar, and was responding to very similar counter-party positions and redline in these documents.

After getting the feeling that his work felt more than a touch robotic, it made him realise that a significant part of his job could potentially be automated to free up time and to speed up the process.

Are the must-have features different when viewed from a sales, procurement or legal perspective?

YES!

Dan explains that the key challenges tend to be:

Self-empowering Sales to avoid them having to go to legal and potentially lose a sale due to the bottleneck.

Enabling Legal do their work faster, and looking at how can they make their work less repetitive.

Procurement is working with a business need for them to purchase something. As the gatekeeper, speeding up the end-to-end Source-to-Contract process is key.

How to bridge the gap between AI, and the professional expertise of the lawyer?

Dan explains that BlackBoiler (or indeed any AI-powered solution for that matter) is not designed to work on its own. The objective is to speed up the process and enable arrival at the destination faster, not to eliminate Legal from the process completely.

Helping the legal counsel to become more efficient and free up their resources to work more strategically is the overarching objective. By enabling them to not be actively involved in fairly routine higher volume, lower risk agreements will add value to both Procurement and Legal alike.

Dan likens this to using a junior counsel rather than a highly experienced legal professional for more routine agreements.

What about greenfield or decentralised procurement with no standard contract templates?

This is an area where it's difficult to apply the typical solution that BlackBoiler would go in and solve. Dan mentions that they're currently working on building something that will enable new or less structured procurement teams to go in and generate some standard clauses based on some standard intake questions.

The solution isn't ready for market yet at the time of publishing but watch this space was his comment!

If lawyers wrote contacts in plain English, would this alleviate the need for such tools?

So, I've got to be honest, I've been waiting to ask someone with a legal background this question on the podcast for a while now.

His answer is that nobody in Legal sits at a computer, opens up a blank Word document, and starts composing a contract from scratch. The reality is that most contracts are a muddle of existing, previously agreed to documents and clauses which are usually chopped, changed and adapted for the specific requirements of that specific buyer / supplier relationship.

There is no difference whether a contract originates from third party paper or an internal standard contract template which has been redlined by the supplier.

Is there a full stack CLM suite that does everything?

In short, no.

It's similar to the suites vs. best-of-breed debate in procuretech. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but through the increasing adoption of APIs and easy integration, it's possible to get different legaltech solutions to speak to each other.

The person who is responsible for the implementation must be aware of this and be mindful of the need to perhaps look at more than one solution, if there is a need and an expectation to cover all aspects of contract management within their digital transformation journey.

Implementation and customer success is key. Dan mentions that many software solutions in his opinion are way too focused on marketing and product development, and too little time is spent on ensuring that the client is happy with and able to get the most out of the software they have purchased.

Who is the customer, and how to differentiate the sales and marketing message in order to resonate?

This is a space where websites and sales campaigns have to incorporate many different potential decision makers. It's not the same as selling e-sourcing software, where Procurement is pretty much the default end customer and user.

Here, a solutions provider in theory has to appeal to Legal, Sales AND Procurement all in one.

So, how does a software company tailor their marketing, content, copy and outreach to speak everyone's language?!

Everyone's contracting function is going to be different. No two organisations are the same. This makes the sales process much less prescriptive. For example, in some cases, Procurement does certain tasks that Legal would be responsible for in other companies.

Some solutions, BlackBoiler included, tend to trend more towards Legal as the key decision maker, whereas other contract-focused software may be somewhat more generic or more tailored towards Sales or Procurement.

Dan rounds off the interview by talking about how the contracting function could perhaps benefit from becoming a little bit more streamlined or joined-up in many organisations to ensure that the whole process is somewhat smoother.

What size of business does BlackBoiler's solution serve?

It's generally a more enterprise-focused solution, with clients typically being organisations who are doing $1 billion and above in annual revenue.

Also, another stream of revenue is focusing on large legal services providers (some of the big law firms) who are typically dealing with enterprise contracts on behalf of their corporate clients.

With that being said, they are also looking at making the solution more within reach of mid-sized businesses. In theory, this could drastically reduce spend on legal services, by just sending out the most complex contracts for external counsel support.

Stay in touch!

Connect with Dan on LinkedIn

Visit BlackBoiler's website

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Managing a situation where an increasing percentage of any company's workforce is composed of external, contingent workers is a challenge that many companies are already dealing with. While many more will have to figure this out pretty soon too, as they move to a more flexible labour model with the advent of the "gig economy".

How to mange this digitally, to both ensure compliant onboarding of consultancies, contractors and freelancers, as well as streamlining the administrative hassle associated with this? Tobi Schmidt and Igor Putrenko from external workforce management platform Eqip are my guests to discuss this.

Managing this process using dozens of different recruitment agencies, or even using individual interim managers directly, isn't realistically an efficient strategy that larger businesses can manage at scale. So, there's a recognised need to manage this more effectively.

What is already out there in terms of existing technology?

Enterprise Resource Planning tools (ERPs) such as SAP and Oracle tend to be used more for matters relating to the internal workforce. Payroll, salary info, taxes, deductions, compliance requirements and so on.

Vendor Management Systems as Igor calls them, or VMS for short, have systems and records for all external providers of services. Examples here in the more traditional enterprise software space are SAP Fieldglass, AgileOne and Beeline. Cost and lack of intuitiveness when it comes to ease of use are cited as being pitfalls of these platforms.

Whereas on the other end of the spectrum, platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr are the go-to websites for managing more traditional freelancer and small agency relationships. These are popular in the tech startup and lifestyle business space, but would not be considered as rigorous when ti comes to the needs of larger businesses with compliance and due diligence requirements.

How does Eqip differentiate their offering?

Eqip is a B2B marketplace which incorporates proper screening process, and also caters to more niche, white collar consultancy or expert professions. This is essentially the differentiation between them and more generic freelancer marketplaces.

In terms of the legacy enterprise software, they attempt to also provide this in one platform but in a more agile way, enabling a faster onboarding process for vendors.

Hard-to-find skills, such as cybersecurity experts, can be very tough to find through traditional recruitment agencies. The existing enterprise software doesn't really provide the tech to enable cross-border talent scouting and a solution to compliantly onboard them.

Eqip saw a gap in the market to fix this, by enabling Swiss companies originally to recruit hard-to-find contractors and consultants from a talent pool in Central and Eastern Europe. Furthermore, it also enables them to manage these workers if they are performing the work remotely from their home countries rather than actually needing to be on site at the client.

What are the emerging trends in this market?

On the one hand, companies struggle to find workers in their own country and simultaneously are becoming more comfortable with remote work. This is leading to more geo-arbitrage when it comes to recruitment, especially in the contingent workforce.

Whereas on the other hand, Eqip is also seeing an increasing demand on the platform for more "operational" consulting requirements from companies who would typically perform the work on site.

Igor also mentions the increasing erosion of the "job for life" concept and a move towards a larger percentage of a company's total workforce being contingent rather than permanent, salaried employees.

Is HR the key stakeholder, and how open are they to change?

While HR teams are a cog in the wheel, Tobi and Igor actually say that their sales and business development strategy is usually focusing on Procurement and Finance in terms of primary outreach.

From their experience, it seems to be a pretty joined up approach insofar as HR and the end user seem to understand the need to adapt and change and consider different ways of working.

They also make the point that regardless of whether onboarding a contingent worker or a permanent employee, the roll of HR would be similar in both instances. Using an external platform to manage contingent workers can also be a boon for HR if they realise that this will be a necessity, as the shift continues towards be a larger percentage of the workforce being freelancers and contractors.

How does Eqip manage payroll and tax requirements for so many different jurisdictions?

Eqip doesn't process this through the platform, but the technology enables for the the correct vetting to take place.

The onboarding process in their system for each consultancy, freelancer or contractor ensures that these checks and requirements have been peformed.

The system can act as a single source of truth for this for audit purposes.

Which types of businesses is the platform ideal for?

Tobi mentions that startups and SMEs are using the platform too, alongside enterprise clients. They have a "lite" version that enables the solution to be affordable for smaller businesses too.

However, their main focus in terms of the full stack product is enterprise. By offering a comprehensive platform of a marketplace and the integrated software to manage the onboarding and compliance, they see this as something larger corporates would value as an all-in-one platform to challenge some of the legacy technology in this space.

Having a single vendor to issue invoices, as an integrator type model, also enables efficiencies for the client in terms of a reduction in vendor count and invoice volume and complexity.

What is their monetisation model?

It's volume driven in terms of the level of fees. There is either a percentage or a flat fee that is taken from the amount that is paid by the client to the contractor. Contingent workers are not charged a sign-up fee or ongoing membership / subscription cost.

Stay in touch

Connect with Tobi and Igor on LinkedIn

Visit the Eqip website

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market

Download our Tech Map for SMEs

Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app

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As procurement pros, we're feeling the heat a lot right now dealing with problems of a reactive nature. We're having to fight to secure supply and deal with crisis management with increasing frequency.

Moving to a more predictive form of supplier relationship management (SRM), while at the same time handling the transactional and compliance part of the requirements is what my guest, Sam Jenks, CMO of Kodiak Hub, is here to talk about today.

Full Stack SRM: The case for "Know Your Supplier" with due diligence and risk monitoring

What started off as Kodiak Rating in 2015 recently rebranded to Kodiak Hub back in September last year. Part of this was the wider evolution of their platform from being primarily a compliance and controls platform to what has now become a full SRM tool, both on the predictive / market intel side as well as on the more traditional audit and reports side.

As Sam explains, this was more of an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process. Customers needed a platform that could expand into other areas of SRM other than the compliance piece, and Kodiak walked with them on their journey and built out their platform to evolve into what it is today.

Onboarding and assessment was the core feature, but this has since expanded to cover:

Credit rating

Third party market intelligence

Due diligence (audit) module

Supplier performance

How has the evolution affected their customer base?

Primary customers have moved to be slightly larger than previously, but they have maintained to a large extent a customer base which is predominantly manufacturing businesses with a large spend on raw materials.

The industry sectors have remained pretty consistent along their journey but they are now seeing more success acquiring customers more positioned towards the enterprise segment. Whereas previously, most of their business was coming from the mid market.

Breaking down SRM: tactical and strategic

How can this experience be improved and optimised within a digital platform, based on what Kodiak Hub has built?

Tactical:

Supplier onboarding, compliance checks and audit - removing manual data entry and ensuring that the data gathering piece can be automated to the greatest possible extent.

Supplier pre-qualification and onboarding also requires the supplier to be actively engaged and to find the process intuitive.

Industry or customer specific content around supplier onboarding has been built into the platform to avoid

Weighting and KPIs can be modelled based on customers' individual criteria.

Strategic:

Collaboration space - having an interactive platform which can be used either for corrective actions, or for innovation focused activities. Looking at innovative activities, this is more based on project management or more strategic activities such as joint R&D.

Performance evaluation - removing the "Excel hell" from the process and having 6 different standard areas for performance. Everyone's needs when it comes to performance are different, depending on what they are buying and the industry sector they are in.

Predictive analytics:

While there are a lot of stand alone best-of-breed solutions out there offering individual solutions - e.g. news monitoring, financial risk, traceability - Kodiak has tried to bring this all under one umbrella.

Their approach is to partner with third party solutions providers who can do all of this in one platform rather than try to build out their own proprietary technology for everything to try to compete with the single-solution software providers.

What makes Kodiak different from all-in-one suites which have SRM platforms?

Sam highlights the fact that a lot of the suites are not user friendly and there is a lot of legacy technology out there with some of the traditional suites.

He also mentions that through their approach of partnering with technology providers who are experts in the space of each of the specific areas they work with, they're able to offer a more detailed solution in each of their modules vs. the suites.

Implementation time is also faster, enabling the user to bring Kodiak on board in weeks rather than months or in some cases years, as can often be the case with some of the more traditional all-in-one suite providers which require a lot of technical integration and IT consulting support.

Pick and mix

Kodiak gives the option to purchase the solution as a modular software, so you don't need to buy the whole suite if you're mixing and matching best-of-breed solutons.

I then ask Sam is whether they are looking to partner with other complementary solutions providers who are playing in this space, as this would be the next logical step to me.

What about using AI?

Kodiak Hub doesn't use any natively developed AI but it relies heavily on their third party integrations who leverage this technology.

The Data architecture that is built for scale.

Stay in touch!

Kodiak Hub website

Connect with Sam on LinkedIn

Download our Tech Map for Enterprise

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Today is a very proud and special day for me as I launch our new venture: Procurement Software.

The ProcurementSoftware.site website sets out to democratise access to information and resources on digital procurement as a free platform, focusing on helping procurement leaders, CFOs and boutique consultancies serving mid-market businesses.

What makes ProcurementSoftware.site different and unique?

I've listed 10 reasons why I believe that Procurement Software provides a solution that nobody else out there is offering....here goes:

1. Completely FREE to access for the buy side

We don't charge any subscription to buyers. Neither to the individual, nor to the company.

Our directory is completely free to access all areas.

2. Focus on software that's within reach of mid-market businesses

The existing content platforms and research houses who are specifically focused on the digital procurement ecosystem are very much targeting enterprise level procurement pros as their target audience.

While anyone in a large corporate will still get value from our solution, we have deliberately included some of the less well-known software that focuses on mid-market and SMEs as their target customer base.

All of the legacy suites and new best-of-breed solutions who target enterprise customers are also included in the directory, but our blogs and this podcast is more focused on the mid market.

3. More transparency

There are a number of "best of" lists out there. They have varying transparency when it comes to how these lists are put together. Some are more clear than others, but still, there is a lot that remains murky.

We have circumvented this potential issue by making the directory completely comprehensive and including anyone in there who we believe has a relevant solution and a saleable, useable product with existing customers.

4. We're all busy: you don't have time for complex research

Procurement pros - I know you're busy. There are enough challenges in the world right now keeping you up at night. That's why we feel that a lot of the detailed research and white papers are unnecessarily complex.

You're smart people. If you're given the basics to get on with, you can do your due diligence on the potential software suppliers you're considering.

Do you need to pay several thousand dollars for a white paper you'll probably never read in full? That money could be better spent hiring someone to help you source and implement the software from the shortlist of solutions we'll provide you for free.

5. User Friendly

Our content and our software directory is easy to use, easy to find and intuitive.

I talk about UX being an under-appreciated feature for procurement technology to help with adoption and uptake.

The exact same thing applies here. We will definitely also listen closely to user feedback and improve our UX as we go!

6. No Corporate Subscriptions

So, if your organisation doesn't have a corporate subscription to one of the big research houses, then how do you access market knowledge?

As an individual, you can't take out a subscription. And even if you could, it would be prohibitively expensive. That's why we're never going to offer this as a business model.

Even if we sell content in the form of digital downloads on the site in future, my goal is to ensure we offer this at an affordable price that any procurement pro could purchase, even for those of you who are unable to claim it back as a company expense.

7. No Jargon!

I hate complexity for the sake of it. White papers and solutions maps can be unnecessarily confusing. Lots of competitor websites are full of acronyms and procurement-speak.

That's why we want to give you a simple solution which just requires a few mouse clicks. We've also spelt out in full all of the acronyms that are in our software finder, so you're not scratching your head if you're not an expert in this space.

8. No "pay-to-play" business model

Every software solution that is listed in our directory has a basic profile for free. Nobody has paid us to be included on the platform, full stop.

Do we make money through sponsorship? Of course, but it's not a prerequisite to be present on the website.

9. Clear monetisation and revenue model

We are very transparent with how we make money. Our revenue will come from sponsored content:

Sponsored podcasts

Sponsored blog posts

Live software demos on LinkedIn and YouTube

A few strategically placed banner ads (that won't hurt the user experience)

Referral partnerships with our favourite solutions providers

10. We only feature procuretech

The generic software review and search websites are not solely focused on procurement technology. We are!

There is always going to be a fine line between procuretech and fintech, legaltech and supply chain tech in certain aspects. Inevitably, there will be some solutions included that are not pure play procuretech.

But at the same time, I believe all solutions we've included have a reference point or value proposition to procurement pros in some way.

 

Interested to sponsor the website?

Have a software solution that you'd like us to include in the directory?

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With the backdrop of inflation, supply chain shortages and now as I currently write this, a war being fought on European soil, supplier collaboration and supplier innovation are two topics that I think we can be sure will increase in priority.

My guest to deep dive on this topic is Maciej (Matt) Zaleski of Procurence Meercat, a software platform for industrial manufacturing companies who have recently developed a supplier innovation module for their solution.

Using software to successfully drive a transparent supplier innovation program

Against the rather bleak backdrop we're currently up against, the focus right now is to ensure that manufacturing businesses are able to become a customer of choice to their supply base. With a tight market and the need to innovate to stay ahead, avoid material shortages and optimise lead times, this is particularly good timing to be discussing this topic.

Procurence grew out of Matt being frustrated at what was already out there. He found himself as a consultant having to leave a client with Excel sheets rather than a nice software dashboard. This is ultimately what drove him to start the business.

Starting off with a procurement, quality and vendor master data solution, Procurence has since grown to become a full stack solution on the quality and New Product Introduction (NPI) side in addition to the pure procurement modules. This focus has enabled them to thrive in manufacturing industries, especially the automotive sector.

New modules have very much been based on customer feedback, and supplier innovation is no different, growing out of a request from AGCO Corporation, one of Procurence's key customers, to streamline and digitise the process.

Define "Supplier Innovation": What does it mean?

There are three key pillars that Matt typically sees from Procurence Meercat clients:

• Design to cost
• Quality
• Sustainability

Matt explains that it's all about looking at what hides below the waterline.

Continuous Improvement often sits below the top of the iceberg but is nonetheless a very important component of supplier relationships.

Different stakeholders will drive the process depending on what the end result should be.

Ideas generation typically becomes a lot more bottom up process and as such requires a greater amount of participation from a wider number of stakeholders e.g. engineering, marketing, supply base, manufacturing.

Early involvement with suppliers is key. Otherwise, the potential is that a company misses out on ongoing feedback during a design process or project ideation if they are only contacting suppliers once the design and features are a done deal.

R&D is a more strategic function, but often don't have the manufacturing experience or the technical knowledge of the supplier's production process.

A hands off approach will result in the supplier doing as they're told. Whereas in a more collaborative environment, they will volunteer suggestions and improvements during a more consultative process.

How can software assist this process?

Channel between internal stakeholders and suppliers. There are often multiple stakeholders who need to have access to a two-way conversation between the company and its supply base.

"Crowdsourcing" of innovative solutions to specific problems around product design, production process, quality improvements, kanban etc.

Software platforms facilitate this through making the conversations visible to multiple stakeholders and removing the silos we see when this task is performed through emails and spreadsheets.

Supplier to internal stakeholder: procurement doesn't know everything that's going on in the company. Procurement often expects a clear specification to be able to go to market with an RFP or RFQ. Stakeholders may look to suppliers to assist them with this process and thus reduce the time to introduce the part or project.

This can also work in service companies, and also in decentralised businesses, as Matt explains with his example of German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

And what is the clear benefit to Procurement?

Three things primarily:

Transparency - we want stakeholders to talk to suppliers directly, but we also need to know when they're doing it, in order to avoid "divide and conquer" tactics from a supplier

Compliance - through having this visibility, we can ensure that any internal processes are being followed and that stakeholders are informed of any violations in a pre-emptive manner if they enter into contractual or commercial discussions with vendors.

Better stakeholder relationships - through improvements to communication and being able to collaborate, and react, faster as a team in the triangle of communication between buyer, supplier and stakeholder

Ways to be more engaged with your supply base

There are 3 common ways to engage the supply base

Supplier innovation day - software enables suppliers to submit ideas online ahead of the event. Innovation teams can then review and provide feedback in time for the event.

Hackathons - coming from the tech startup scene for a quick, intensive brainstorming activity

Design-to-cost workshops - only open typically to a select number of core suppliers.

Easier to get objective feedback on supplier innovation when everything is in a single source of truth.

You can measure based on a funnel of ideas generated through to actual implementations executed and the cost savings realised.

Suppliers also want to understand and receive regular feedback around WHY their ideas are not implemented and taken on board.

Gain shares and savings recognition

To incentivise and ensure that suppliers are keen and want to participate, of course there usually to be something in it for them.

Sharing the savings with the vendor is a great way to keep supplier innovation pipelines robust!

To ensure that the right stakeholders are involved in the big ticket items, thresholds can be set within Procurence Meercat to determine that, for example, a Head of Procurement or CFO is flagged each time an innovation project is entered into the platform that has a high savings potential.

But then, Matt flips this on its head and suggests also that you can introduce new products to the market that drives bottom line growth as a result of supplier innovation. So, growth as well as cost reduction!

How important is C-level sponsorship?

My final question to Matt is the age old question of senior leadership involvement to ensure adoption and success. He confirms that from his experience, a CPO is usually driving this with approval from other board members.

The bigger the organisation, generally the more inertia and resistance to change within a business. The "we've always done it this way" conundrum.

Matt's parting words of wisdom are to start small and work on continuous improvement initiatives, before working on ground breaking projects. From small acorns grow large oak trees!

Stay in touch!

• Connect with Maciej on LinkedIn
• Visit Procurence Meercat's website
• Download our Tech Map for Enterprise
• Download our Tech Map for Mid-Market
• Download our Tech Map for SMEs
• Find your perfect procurement tech solution in our Software Finder app
• Sign up for the Procurement Software Newsletter
• Book an Intro Call and let’s talk all things Digital Procurement!
• Connect with James on LinkedIn