29 Jul 2013 A new dynamic discounting offering enters the market
Taulia has a world-class product that gives customers a high return on their cash balances while putting affordable working capital in the hands of suppliers. Dynamic discounting is a simple model and very effective but Taulia have always had one big problem – they only serve SAP customers. Because their dynamic discounting solution is native to SAP, there’s a huge market that they simply can’t access. But now there’s a team that can access the non-SAP market – they’re called Taulia.
Taulia’s SAP limitation was never really a weakness. Being “ERP agnostic” is not necessarily a strength. There are a few serious hurdles to overcome to get supply chain partners to play the dynamic discounting game and making the user interface seamless overcomes them very effectively – that can only really be done by implementing a native application. For Taulia, this has given them a real strength over their competition amongst the SAP installed base. But it’s also given them a frustration. Not only has it limited their potential market, amongst their existing customers, addressable spend is limited if they have multiple ERP systems – which is not unusual. And that’s why Taulia have developed a non-SAP version of their dynamic discounting offering.
I spoke to Markus Ament, Chief Product Officer at Taulia about this move and he was at pains to explain that Taulia has not simply become generic. “We retain our SAP focus,” he explained. “Our native application is still the best option for SAP customers but there is demand out there from our existing customers who have more than one ERP as well as Oracle users, Lawson users and the rest. We can now make available to Oracle users a specific Oracle connector as well as offering a generic solution.”
Markus wouldn’t be drawn on the names but he did say that they have already signed two significant Oracle businesses and they have a healthy pipeline of customers to come on board in the coming months.
I’ve taken a great deal of pleasure in getting to know the Taulia team and watching them grow over the last few years. The idea behind their product is simple but it’s been executed brilliantly. Now their market has just doubled in size and I’d be shocked if there isn’t a flock of investors paying very close attention to Taulia.
Pete Loughlin can be found on twitter @peteloughlin
