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19 Jun

Posted at 05:12h in e-Procurement by
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Today, we're delighted to welcome a post from Ian Burdon, Director of Strategic Business Development, Elcom International, Inc. It’s 2012. We’ve mapped the human genome - been to the moon and back and lost interest in it – and discovered graphene, a fourth carbon allotrope that will transform engineering. Yet when it comes to business processes and conventions, it’s hard to distinguish what we do today from the practices in renaissance Italy. Pete’s post of 14 June “World Class or Half Assed” struck several chords for me but, for now, I’d like to consider only one of them. Particularly resonant was the idea of e-procurement software being designed for the professionals in the system rather than end-users.

14 Jun

Posted at 10:44h in e-Procurement by
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I can buy something from amazon in just a few clicks. I feel confident that I’m getting a good price and I feel safe because the product I’ve selected has good reviews. The whole amazon experience has encouraged millions to change the way they shop. The purchasing process (as we like to think of it – it is more accurately a sales process), has been refined and iterated over the years, so what’s gone wrong with the B2B version – e-procurement? The e-procurement vendors’ sales and marketing material will tell a very different story. They'll explain how corporate purchasing could be but it won’t tell you what, in 9 out of 10 cases, it is really like.

13 Jun

Posted at 11:25h in Dynamic Discounting by
0 Likes
Don't tell me your solution is ERP agnostic. I’m a believer in my ERP system and I want to deal with fellow believers. I don’t want to hear that you sit on the fence. It’s a familiar dilemma for vendors. They’d like to please everyone – be all things to all men - or women for that matter. Sales people are always asking product development teams for more functionality, new connectors, compatibility with new standards and so on in order to be compatible with all possible scenarios. So being ERP agnostic – from the vendors point of view – seems like a good thing. Right?

11 Jun

Posted at 11:32h in Dynamic Discounting, e-invoicing, e-Procurement, e-Procurement Software, Electronic Invoicing, Financial Supply Chain Management, Purchase to Pay, Purchase to Pay Process, Supplier Networks, Supply Chain Finance, The Rest by
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The more I look at the proposed acquisition of Ariba by SAP, the less sense it makes. SAP didn't need the functionality. They didn't need the brand. The Ariba shareholders will clearly be pleased to see this deal go through but what, I wonder, would an SAP sales guy be thinking and what would Ariba's competitors be making of it all?

08 Jun

Posted at 15:10h in e-Procurement by
1 Like

B is for buying experience

C is for Coupa

D is for déjà vu

I’ve been enjoying reading the Coupa blog recently and especially since SAP’s intention to buy Ariba was  announced. It’s been an excuse for Coupa to really blow its trumpet about cloud and the importance of usability. Coupa’s message is very current although we have heard it before.

07 Jun

Posted at 05:08h in e-Procurement, e-Procurement Software, eProcurement, Purchase to Pay, Purchase to Pay Process, The Rest by
1 Like
The original vision was right. The cost of purchasing as well as the cost of purchases could be dramatically reduced by applying the new technology. And there was a road map – a detailed vision showing how to secure the savings. The costs weren’t even that high – especially in comparison to the potential savings - but in the excitement, we lost the map and now, the vision is lost.