Archive for the ‘Software as a Service’ Category

The future of purchasing technology lies beyond the war of words between Coupa and Ariba

February 26, 2010

Over at Spend Matters (here and here), there’s a heated debate over Coupa’s recent marketing campaign and it’s claims to better Ariba in many areas. Now I’m not going to jump into that fray – I’ve spent too many years as a copy writer and music critic to bother with marketing claims and hyping the flavor of the month.

In my mind, the one thing that stands out in differentiating purchasing software is ease of use. End-users don’t care if they work for a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company or if they work for a local firm with single-digit FTEs. They are users of a system and by default they expect things to work easily, smoothly and efficiently. It’s as simple as that. Just because you work for a multi-national doesn’t mean you should expect that the tools you use should be complicated.

Bizconnect’s recent poll shows just this (albeit that their research might be a bit shifty):

43 percent of the respondents said the most important feature they look for when evaluating new purchasing software is ease of use.

So what exactly is ease of use.

Well, today many purchasing software developers look at what Google is doing in the domain, or the major internet webshops. I would say that strategy is rather reactive. In an increasingly mobile (in all senses of the word) world – anything developed with a laptop or stationary computer in mind is going to be second-tier by the time they’re closing in on their release date. If your not convinced, check out this blog-post at Google Mobile; Smarter Shopping with Google Moblie to see where internet commerce is heading.

With smart phone sales boosting the entire mobile phone market in 2009, up by 23.8 percent year over year according to Gartner it’s a no brainer to see where development budgets should be going in the future.

Smartphone sales to end users continued their strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2009, totalling 53.8 million units, up 41.1 per cent from the same period in 2008. In 2009, smartphone sales reached 172.4 million units, a 23.8 per cent increase from 2008. More at Gartner.

It’s a fair guess that many a smart phone ended up in the pockets of business managers looking for ways to better manage their daily work (whilst keeping a front of success and innovation). Smart phones are ease of use. Mobile, simple, efficient and always online.

No matter where the war of words between Coupa, Ariba and the numerous commentators end up – purchasing software providers that do not support smart phones in the near future will not be seen as front runners or purveyors of ease-of-use. They’ll just be more of the same old that we are struggling to leave behind.

Posted in eprocurement, Marketing, News, procure-to-pay cycle, Software as a Service, Technology, Vendor, Web 2.0 | 5 Comments »

Cloud computing sourcing

September 30, 2009

One topic that kept popping up at the recent IBX Purchasing Executive Summit was the transition of goods to services and the implications this has on purchasing. Take cloud computing for instance; it’s the IT hype bar none of 2009, yet few purchasing functions have experience in sourcing the service let alone managing contracts.

Given the circumstances, the benefits of cloud computing are quite obvious:

  • Financial savings – CAPEX is reduced to a minimum
  • Pay for actual usage – no need to own excess capacity to deal with peaks
  • Shared cost – overhead is shared among all cloud customers

If the evangelists have their way, it’s a no brainer.  A recent Gartner report stated that in 2011 early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and instead purchase 40 percent of their IT infrastructure as a service. Other industry analysts have compared the advent of cloud computing to the establishment of utility providers.
In the early stages of industrialism, any one investing in a factory by default had to invest in their own power plants. A few years later a utility sales man – figuratively speaking – showed up with a power cord and rendered the factory owned power plant useless.

So what is cloud computing: frankly put, it’s outsourcing with a twist: not only has your staff (and their computers) left the building, so has your data.

This of course has severe legal implications, the roots of which need to be understood and scrutinized during the sourcing process. In particular sourcing professionals need to ensure that contracts cover the following key issues:

  • Data security and data regulation – not only need cloud computing supplier adhere to customer policies but they also need to be able to uphold legal obligations relating to where the customer is based.
  • Performance issues – SLA:s are essential and these need to include all aspects of business continuity.
  • Contract closure and exit – what happens to your data once the contract is annulled and how will the cloud computing supplier deliver the data?
  • Supplier risk – supplier stability is essential; if possible perform a due diligence before entering into the contract to uncover unwanted scenarios.

Posted in Cloud computing, Software as a Service, Sourcing, Supply Chain Management, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »

Sourcing Innovation Climbs Aboard the Web 2.0 Bandwagon

August 19, 2008

Recently, Sourcing Innovation published their first white paper in a five part series meant to open the eyes of purchasers to the opportunities that arise as web 2.0 makes its way into B2B. Entitled “Introducing B2B 3.0 and Simplicity for All” it provides backgrounds and details the development of e-procurement and e-sourcing from the early rough stages until today, and starts to point out a direction for where these technologies will go in the future.

We’ve touched upon this subject several times in the past few months (On the Way to Enterprise 2.0 and What SRM Can Gain From Social Networking) so hopefully you’re already aware of the power that the so-called web 2.0 technologies unleash (be it web services, intelligent agents, mash-ups, blogs, RSS etc).

Sourcing Innovation promises that this series of white papers will be published on a monthly basis until the end of the year, with “Simplyfying B2B for Suppliers Enables Buyers” being the title of the september edition.

Posted in Software as a Service, Supply Chain Management, Technology | 1 Comment »

On the way to Enterprise 2.0

June 23, 2008

Forrester Research recently published a forecast report on the Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market. This report deals with the influence of the latest Web 2.0 technologies (social networks, RSS, mashups) on the enterprise market and predicts a spending on related technologies and tools of $4.6 billion by the year 2013. The concept of Social Networking will boost collaboration and productivity for the enterprise worker and this will definitely have any impact on ePurchasing as we know it today – I also tackled this in one of my last posts.

If you don’t want to buy the report you can find an excellent article analyzing  the findings on ReadWriteWeb. The article also highlights trends which will influence the Enterprise 2.0 market and I would like to quote the two which I think are the most important ones.

 

External Spending Will Beat Internal Spending:

External Web 2.0 expenditure will surpass internal expenditure in 2009, and, by 2013, will dwarf internal spending by a billion dollars. Internally, companies will spend money on internal social networking, blogs, wikis, and RSS; externally, the spending patterns will be very similar. Social networking tools that provide customer interaction, allowing customers the ability to create profiles, join discussion boards, and read company blogs, for example, will receive more investment and development over the next five years.

 

Web 2.0 Graduates from “Kids’ Stuff”

Right now, it’s people between the ages of 12 and 17 that are the more avid consumers of social computing technology, with one-third of them acting as content creators. Meanwhile, only 7% of those 51-61 do the same. However, this is another trend that is going to change over the next few years. By 2011, Forrester believes that users of Web 2.0 tools will mirror users of the web at large.

 

Source: Enterprise 2.0 To Become a $4.6 Billion Industry By 2013 – ReadWriteWeb.com

 

So if you want to be an early adaptor – have a chat with your kids!

Posted in Software as a Service, Technology | 1 Comment »

Rather optimize than extend

June 16, 2008

ePurchasing applications have reached a fair level of maturity which has changed the focus of providers from adding more features to their products to actually improving and optimizing existing tools and processes. Of course as an application provider you need to show innovation in your product lines but the feature war seems to have calmed down a lot comparing to a few years back.

This is good for the customer side because usability actually moved form “Nice to have, let’s do it later!” to the top of the requirements agenda. If you compare the different ePurchasing applications on the market you will realize that they will all pretty much match up with your main requirements. Of course there are different bells and whistles but all tools will help you to get your stuff done the one way or the other. The differentiation factor is usability, performance, effectivness and beauty … or before we get to romantic here lets call it “layout of the user interface”.

  • Is the system friendly to use?
  • Is the user interface self explaining?
  • Can a new user get thru the process without any training?
  • Howquick can I get things done?
  • Usability drives adoption – rolling out an ugly system is much harder than introducing a nice, lean and fast user interface. Even if the ugly inteface can do more you will need to push your users much harder to work with it.
  • Or why do you buy your books on amazon? Because amazon has so many features? No, because it makes buying simple.

So when you post your next change request to your application provider I would like you to reflect on this? Will the change blow up complexity or will it make work easier? Not just for you – for everyone!

Posted in Software as a Service, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Maverick buying SaaS Solutions

May 27, 2008

As I wrote in my last blog entry, SaaS (Software as a Service) is gaining more ground in coporate IT strategies but taking a closer look sometimes the CIO is completely left out in the decision making process for SaaS. The nature of SaaS solutions is that they can be implemented and used without even involving the IT department and this is what happens in a lot of companies.

The driving force to implement a SaaS systems is in many cases the operating department (e.g. the purchasing, sales or marketing department). If an operating department needs to move fast to solve an issues or to gain a competitive advantage the barrier for maverick buying a SaaS solution is very low. More and more CIOs find out about these systems long after they have been implemented and used. Of course SaaS solutions are also easy to get rid of from a technical standpoint but do you really want to take the hassle to reverse such decisions?

In my view – if IT wants to maintain its leading position, they need to proactively incorporate SaaS in their strategies and offer expert support in the SaaS selection process e.g. when it comes to the negotiation of service level agreements and the concept of a future integration concept for SaaS solutions.

Posted in Software as a Service, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Why Software-as-a-Service is gaining ground

May 19, 2008

Software as a Service or SaaS (how we geeks call it) is gaining more and more ground in Corporate IT strategies and the current momentum in new web technologies also known as Web 2.0 will give it an even greater push. I have scanned the blogs of several opinion leaders in SaaS and I have summarized the key reasons for this development which I think can also be witnessed in current ePurchasing engagements.

Purchasing Managers need to go virtual

The growing virtualization is not only a technology trend, but it is also a business trend. eProcurement and eSourcing have brought Purchasing higher up on the corporate agenda but this has also caused higher expectations from the purchasing experts – more global projects, more travel and less time. Traditional systems sitting behind the firewall can no longer fulfill the needs of a modern purchasing manager. SaaS is perfectly suited for these new, virtual business requirements.

Traditional Software vendors jump on the band wagon

Just a couple of years ago SaaS was not really expected to make it into the strategies of the big traditional software vendors. The light weight business model of SaaS was regarded as a clear threat against the heavy weight behind-the-firewall strategies. Today even SAP and Oracle have entered the band wagon still struggling with the right price models but well aware of the growing importance of it.
SaaS is recession proof

Cost-control and flexibility is an important differentiating factor in times of an uncertain economic and political landscape. The adoption of SaaS on a pay-as-you-go basis will help successful companies to stay agile if investments need to be stretched. 
Corporate IT departments have accepted SaaS

6 years ago one of the biggest deal blockers for on-demand eSourcing deals where the internal IT departments. We had to argue against requirements like: “We have an Oracle strategy! Do you support DB2? SQL Server is not part of our IT strategy!” They where actually afraid of SaaS, thinking it could eliminate their jobs. This has clearly changed. SaaS has become a natural part of IT strategies.
Inspired by these blogs:

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Posted in Software as a Service, Technology | Leave a Comment »

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