Last week the eProcure & Supply 2008 took place in the lovely town of Nürnberg. Over 115 companies in the Source-to-Procure-to-Pay area showed their products and service offerings, over 3000 Top Purchasing Professionals from mainly Germany, Austria and Switzerland visited the fair which was accompanied by a purchasing congress with over 400 participants. So this event can be considered as one of the major ones in the so called DACH region and therefore very much qualifies as a trend indicator.
As this is now the third time that I have been at this fair as an exhibitor and the fifth time in total I feel to be legitimated to give away some thoughts around this event.
Apart from the normal fluctuation of exhibitors – some old names vanished and gone, some new players emerged – it was obvious that the eProcure & Supply 2008 was smaller on the supplier side than the ones in the past two years. This can also be verified by the numbers. In 2006 168 companies have been present, in 2007 it was 143 and it dropped to 115 now in 2008.
So is this reflecting a market consolidation – the inescapable shake out? Or is it just a dropping importance of this specific fair?
As the number of visitors stayed nearly the same – at around 3000 – I wouldn’t say that it is a decreasing interest in purchasing topics. On contrary I have noticed some maturity at all market players – supply and demand…!
On supply side more and more players are moving away from their niche existence towards a full purchasing service offering. It seems that they have finally understood that implementing the 56th technological feature of their source, procure or pay software will not bring much additional value to their customers. You should be able to help the purchasing organizations comprehensively with your tools, services and expertise in all relevant areas: Source, Procure, Pay and Consulting. Sure, being in Germany means that a majority of projects and initiatives still are very technological and still too many of these purchasing projects are steered by IT or finance departments instead of the purchasing departments. But I have never before talked to that many buyers at this fair than this year – which is a very good sign.
On demand side another clear trend is that the big corporations that have completed a long e-purchasing journey in the past years now find themselves standing at a crossroad again. They have to ask themselves: Shall they invest in the above mentioned 56th feature on their solutions or should they assess their current situation thoroughly and then broaden and connect their various activities instead? In other words these companies are now focusing on Purchasing Transformation rather than pure technology roll-outs. From the interesting talks that I had with numerous customers and prospects it is clear, that the trend clearly indicates in the Purchasing Transformation direction. Before you decide on one of the ways at a crossroad you should have a look on the map. And such kind of a map is what we call a Value Assessment. Within this concept we recommend not to focus only on technology or only one of the major purchasing processes. You should perform a comprehensive analysis in all relevant aspects instead: Strategy, Processes, HR & Organization, Performance Measurement and – only as one part of it – Technology.
The discussions at the eProcure & Supply 2008 showed me clearly the growing interest in this way of thinking. Let’s see what the next eProcure & Supply event will bring in spring 2009 and if we will see some successful projects and initiatives!
On a personal note: On Tuesday I had to cover for my dear colleague Regine Böhm-Gams who was supposed to present our Purchasing Transformation approach at the exhibitor forum but then was unavailable on short notice. Grabbing that opportunity I took that speech and of course also proudly introduced our book “Purchasing Transformation”. As a co-author I promised to sign copies of the book after the speech if anyone would be interested in it. To be honest: I was quite nervous and very happy and relieved that I was asked to sign some five copies.
So as you can see the eProcure & Supply 2008 also bore a great moment for me 
Tags: business intelligence, conferences, fairs
