Posts filed under 'Analysts/Research'
April 28th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
I love writing about the topic of supply management vendors and the SaaS industry. Nothing gets software companies with itchy trigger fingers so tweaked, which creates a flurry of anonymous comments, meant to defend the business practice of losing money. I will have an permanent escort at the ISM conference, so I don’t get shanked in the restroom.
Hence, when I read an article by Bruce Richardson, of AMR, about the difficulty that SaaS companies have in achieving profitability, I found it very interesting. Apparently, this profitability problem is not isolated to supply management. Most on-demand software companies are pouring resources into sales and marketing and losing the battle. He quoted RightNow’s CEO, as describing the strategy, which amounts to loss leading.
When I talked to CEO Greg Gianforte a few weeks ago, he agreed it costs a lot of money to sign new accounts. These high initial costs can be offset by a successful land-and-expand strategy. He said his annual contract value was running $85K for an 18- to 24-month deal, with the average transaction worth $150K. Most customers will spend eight times what they did on the initial transaction by making five or six additional purchases over the next three years. RightNow offers 30 products.
This means every acquired client is a Vegas dice roll, and a pretty unstable model, from my perspective. Everything is riding on - the upsell. It also demonstrates that the point is not to make traditional profits, but rather, to increase perceived “value” of the company. Fortunately, the old days of throwing in everything, with no intention of monetizing it, have mostly faded away. This practice is highly destabilizing to our industry, as it builds buyer conditioning that there are no costs and it should all be “free”.
Also, from a buyer perspective, understand your TCO. Clearly, if your vendor is losing money to work with you, they will eventually try to reclaim those losses. The alternative is worse, from the buyer side - liquidation or acquisition of your vendor. I see some important things that every procurement organization should ask its prospective partner:
- How much does it cost to acquire $1 of revenue for your company?
If the number is in line with reasonable costs, your vendor is under control and likely has reasonable goals (yes, Iasta fits this category, and I do know what it costs us for every $1 in sales).
If it does not work out financially for the vendor, more questions must come out:
- How long have you been operating under these conditions?
- What is the business plan to correct and stabilize this pattern?
- What other charges will be incurred by our team later, that are not being described now?
- What is going to be the upsell strategy long term with your products?
You cannot forecast everything, but this are very simple indicators which will be directionally accurate.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, e-Sourcing Marketplace
April 15th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
I am a little late getting to this report from AMR, which is reserved for members only (although SCDigest did provide a little insight, as did Spend Matters).
High level take aways stated that supply management technology is a key enabler for value chain success, reflected by an anticipated 14.5% increase in spending in 2008. Cost savings and procurement efficiency are two of the primary goals desired by purchasing respondents, and also, it was noted that the spend visibility and contract management were ranked 1 and 2 in the list of Most Strategic Investments.
Another interesting statistic showed that Sourcing tools were the most commonly deployed applications at companies over $1b in revenue, at 67%. That is a very strong show of acceptance of eSourcing. It also showed that an additional 27% of respondents intended to deploy sourcing application, which would total 94%. That seems a little odd to me and possibly I am missing the relationship between those two questions.
One of AMR’s key conclusions drawn was:
Our study identifies a shift away from ERP platforms over the next three years for most supply management segments in favor of best-of-breed and custom applications that are expected to provide the greatest innovation, functionality, and transformational capability in supply management.
This was backed by:
The largest supply management budget segment is internal head count. Tied with the ERP platform as the main supply management application, one definitely questions the use of technology and services to integrate and streamline processes in supply management. With high dollars in these three segments, the opportunity for integration, cycle time reduction, and savings is significant. This is good news for supply management technology vendors, service providers, and business process outsourcing firms.
…
While most of the 15 segments in the United States were sourced using ERP platforms, custom and best-of-breed vendors continued to be deployed and appear to be cutting into ERP market share, specifically in the areas of travel and expense, services procurement, supplier connectivity, SPM, supply visibility, supplier portals, and financial settlement.
Clearly, AMR is very bullish on supply management spending patterns, but also are touting the trend of BoB vendors digging into the ERP meat and potatoes.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, Contract Management, General, Spend Analysis, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace
April 14th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
Sourcing Handbook from Iasta.com, baaaby.
Occasionally, a new resource comes along that is really worth spending some time on. A few weeks ago, Iasta Publishing Co, completed its first publication of original work. Most of which is written by Sourcing Futurist and Supply Chain Guru, Michael Lamoureux, who maintains his own blog and is a regular contributor to ESF and ESW.
This is not your typical vendor marketing schlock or PowerPoint clip art. This is a real book, packed with hundreds of pages of powerful best practices content on sourcing and sourcing technology. We decided to release this as an e-book first, with plans to publish in hard copy soon, for easier reading. I am currently working on some ISBN needs, cover design and printing requirements to officially put this on Amazon for purchase.
The e-Sourcing Handbook is a modern guide to Supply and Spend Management Success which utilizes and enhances strategic sourcing technology and best practices. Covering the full spectrum of the e-Sourcing cycle, the handbook helps you understand not only what spend analysis, e-RFx, e-Auction, decision optimization, and contract management are, but where and when to apply these technologies for maximum benefit.
Building on the resounding success of the e-Sourcing Wiki and the e-Sourcing Forum and Sourcing Innovation blogs, the handbook takes the concept of open access to knowledge and best practices one step further by compiling the best information on e-Sourcing to appear on all three public information sources into one definitive source. Furthermore, by mixing content from factual and informative wiki articles with blog postings that are both controversial and opinionated in an innovative manner, the juxtaposition of the two in the handbook allows the reader to see where the boundary lies between information and advocacy. It is the goal of the authors that, through this ground-breaking effort, the reader will gain a better understanding of e-Sourcing and how to take their supply and spend management efforts to the next level.
You may download the e-book version FOR FREE,
from the Iasta website.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology
April 9th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
If you are in procurement and in the retail industry, you have benefited from a large focus of attention recently. Aberdeen has released a new report, Business Intelligence in Retail: A Best-in-Class Roadmap for Performance Improvement, which deals with improvement on spend under management. And AMR, is having a retail research bonanza in 2008, with the most recent, Sourcing Revs Up Retailers, recently coming out.
These are great reports for the specific industry mentioned. In particular, AMR describes the differences of the retail environment for sourcing:
- Sourcing scale—A retailer often designs and sources tens of thousands of new products or SKUs every year, with sourcing changes across multiple seasons adding to the complexity.
- Consumer centric—Consumer-driven sales place significant demands on the sourcing process, especially in the area of quality assurance and social responsibility.
- Process and systems complexity—Retail sourcing processes and systems tend to be more complex than those found in other sourcing environments.
They mention that this industry is moving into integrated PLM, product design, visibility and collaboration and vendors need to support this functionality. I see this transformation taking a long time, as many retailers are still trying to get a handle on these parts one at a time. However, the point is valid and most companies should be looking long term for advanced, integrated technology.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology
April 4th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
I am not sure how I missed this earlier, but I did see it from England, at least. Aberdeen had a study which showed a surprising number of CPOs (20%) have no formal plan for purchasing strategy. Almost half did have a plan that spanned over one year, fortunately.
Aberdeen Group predicts 2008 will be the year of the “CPO rising” as they embed their position and their importance to the business over the next 12 months. “Like a Roman centurion, the chief procurement officer leads his/her team from the front lines, exposed on the flanks by an increasingly volatile and increasingly global marketplace and marked by an increasing prominence that demands greater performance,” said the report, which interviewed 350 procurement leaders worldwide.
I will go make an effort to locate this report in the research library. There is likely to be a lot more information in this report beyond this one statistic.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General
March 17th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
A couple months ago, I received a newsletter from Denali under this title. The is content very, very good and is a “sneak peek” at the bigger set of information available, at Denali Intelligence, a category specific market intelligence service.
There is some fascinating analysis in this FREE newsletter.
Some economists project that the US dollar is now undervalued and will rise soon, but the current momentum is downward and will continue to be so into most of next year. A chief source of downward pressure comes from foreign central banks and investors as they work to reduce the volume of US dollars in their portfolios. Simply put, US imports flood foreign investors with payment dollars that they must absorb or reinvest. As the tide of dollars is traded, supply and demand laws take over … and the dollar surplus drives the “price” downward.
In 2008, on average, prices of imported goods will rise 3% to 4% to directly adjust to the recent dollar depreciation. How quickly this inflation will occur depends on the particular market parameters (degrees of demand, supply and competition), but most of the price adjustment is expected to occur by mid 2008.
World demand for the commodities used in construction and manufacturing, such as cement, steel and energy, is straining supply capacity. Therefore global conglomerate suppliers do not need to absorb as much of the exchange rate loss when they get paid in cheaper dollars than they expected. Metals, plastics and cement international product prices are already displaying this impact, but the prices of materials produced in the domestic U.S. market are insulated from this effect. The decline in foreign supplier’s interest is sometimes first observed in reduced auction participation. In these occurrences, domestic suppliers may regain an advantage previously lost to foreign competition.
I find this so interesting. Not only has Denali Consulting created a tremendously valuable resource (and business), they are also distributing useful parts in the form of a dense newsletter. I know these guys well and this is a rapidly expanding business for them. It is well worth looking in to, for any sourcing professional that does not have its own supply market research team.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Global Supply Issues/Risk, Suppliers
March 10th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
Occasionally, it can be difficult to see the forest through the trees, especially as economic pressure is stripping away extra budgets. Supply Chain Brain published findings by AMR last month that advised the opposite.
“Companies that have invested in sourcing and procurement technologies did so to improve operational performance and align with CEO objectives, according to AMR Research analysis in Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies magazine’s 2008 Resource Guide & Executive Yearbook.
Improving operational performance is vital for organizations striving to grow top-line revenue and reduce overall costs. This requires CEOs and their organizations to execute in the present and innovate for the future. Doing so means the CPO initiatives must become imperatives.”
Of the four CPO imperatives identified:
- Ensure reliable supply
- Mitigate risk
- Improve working capital
- Reduce and contain the costs of goods and services. Spend analytics, e-negotiations, e-procurement workflow, expense management, and catalogs help reduce and contain the costs of good and services.
The article goes on to forecast the technology industry for these tools by claiming:
All imperatives are driving sourcing and procurement technology investment and in turn the market, which AMR predicts will grow from $2.4bn in 2006 to $3.5bn in 2011. Buyers are calling for a transformation from traditional, localized sourcing and procurement practices to demand-driven and efficient ecosystems that exist in a global economy.
It is a tough road but one well worth traveling.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology
February 26th, 2008
Sean Delaney - Iasta UK
In a recent poll for supply management 77% of the respondents were planning to make cuts to their vendor list.
In soccer terms this is the equivalent of a route one i.e., kick the ball as far up the field in the hope that somebody inadvertently nudges it in the right direction and scores a goal. There is not much technique involved but it’s still a goal. However when you try a second time the likelihood of scoring is far less. Sourcing in my opinion is the same, let me explain…..
Global risk factors are no greater than ever before, raw material prices are rising, availability is falling and product life cycles are growing ever shorter.
Procurement should be wary of these factors and in my opinion decisions to reduce the number of suppliers should not be made by simply (as a respondent to this survey suggests) looking at the aggregate spend against the number of suppliers and then picking a number.
I strongly believe — more than ever before — now is the time for a much more measured approach to identifying the optimum number of suppliers. Other factors should be considered:
- Required lead times – do all items need to be delivered at the same time, or are suppliers dictating terms?
- Supplier Sourcing – it’s no longer enough to have two suppliers; we now need to understand the shape of their supply chain, i.e. from where are our suppliers sourcing? Do they have the same source? If so, supply risks are not reduced.
- KPI’s (key performance indicators) – should be constantly measured and automatically collated. These measures should be regularly factored into forward orders and commitment i.e. signs of low OTIF percentages should be tackled immediately and plans executed to reduce risk and maintain continuity.
- Goals of the business (i.e. product life cycles) - How long is a product due to run and what are the forecasts? What is likely to replace existing revenue? What is currently being trialed?
- Customer profiles and spend patterns - For example if customer expenditure patterns are likely to be more price sensitive, then there could be a shift in demand patterns. Therefore reducing commitments on high-value buys will reduce exposure and risks.
I’m sure there are plenty more factors which should be considered but these are the first ones that come to mind.
Basically I think this is no longer just a simple decision and the total cost of ownership is now key. However I can’t see how this can be done without up to date management information and therefore decent spend analysis software which tracks all these factors.
In summary route one i.e. reducing supplier numbers is too risky and is now less likely to reap the rewards of past rationalisation. To mitigate the risks and still deliver benefits buyers need to adopt a more measured approach in much the same way as the most successful Premiership Managers. Real time Spend Management information is the imperative.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Sourcing News, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace
February 25th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
Next Level Purchasing recently released their 2008 Purchasing & Supply Management Career & Skills Report which not only included a wealth of statistics on supply management today, but also included solid evidence that the profession is evolving into a more strategic one.
One of the questions that the survey asked was If you’ve been in purchasing for more than five years, what responsibilities do you have today that you didn’t have five years ago? The three most common answers were:
- Manage other purchasers
- Negotiate with suppliers
- Supplier / Vendor Development and Management
As Charles Dominick notes, this indicates that there has been a significant change in the way organizations view their suppliers. No longer are suppliers merely insignificant entities to fulfill needs - they are now strategic partners as supplier performance can greatly impact an organization’s operational efficiency, cost structure, and ability to serve its own customers. Having a good supply base provides an organization with a competitive advantage.
Furthermore, strategic organizations can reap great benefits from supplier relationships through the exchange of ideas, collaboration that improves product and service offerings, and the identification of common goals that lead to shared rewards. However, this requires that buyers work closely with the supplier to improve the supplier’s capabilities (development) and put systems and procedures in place to measure, communicate, and improve the supplier’s performance (measurement).
In addition, the fact that more professionals are now managing other professionals indicates that several trends have started to take hold in profession across the industry:
- purchasing is moving from de-centralized to centralized or center-led
- the value of purchasing and supply management is being recognized by senior management, who are creating strategic supply management departments where none existed before
- the number of jobs, especially on the strategic side, is increasing
This is all good news. Let’s just hope these professionals are given access to state of the art e-Sourcing tools to help them do their jobs efficiently and productively!
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Supply Management Best Practices
February 20th, 2008
Sean Delaney - Iasta UK
Well another eWorld (London 12th & 13th Feb) has come and gone but some significant shifts it the market yet again. As always the keynote session was well received and after a year’s absence Chris Sawchuck from Hackett delivered the presentation. Some of the key points were:
- Best in class procurement organisations are costing less to run. The total cost of running the procurement department is falling as a percentage of total revenue. Procurement is being asked to deliver more with the same resources.
- BIC are finding diminishing returns on their sourcing activities and they are starting to hit a wall.
- In order to maintain and improve returns BIC are starting to look at the Total Cost of Ownership – influencing spend decisions earlier.
- However only 33% of world class organisations are actually focusing on Total Cost of Ownership approach – so there is room for growth.
Chris went on to add that although in Procurement has been through 10 great years we are now heading into a perfect storm……
S - Supply Assurance – the need for the right goods in the right place at the right time is going to be an even greater challenge.
T – Talent and technology will continue to be top issues. The lack of talent continues to have detrimental affects on the adoption technology. This has become a worldwide issue.
O – Operational – procurement is still about purchase and payables.
R – Risk and regulation is a growing concern. Supply chain risk factors are multiplying and at the same time regulations are growing.
M – More growth, more innovation greater brand enhancement. CEO’s are tasking procurement to deliver and influence in all these areas.
As you can see from Chris’s analysis not only do we have some difficult economic conditions ahead but Procurement will have a far greater range of challenges to contend with.
There was also a Green tint to the show with exhibitors like Green2020 focusing on carbon footprint reduction and Action Sustainability focus on sustainable procurement.
From a personal perspective the delegates were far more focused on their organisational needs and what eSourcing had to offer them. Spend Analysis has yet some way to go to reach a similar level of understanding.
Overall another great conference and looking forward to September already!
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, e-Sourcing Marketplace
January 31st, 2008
Sean Delaney - Iasta UK
In a previous entry I talked about how the utilisation of Spend Analysis software makes the rational of a vendor reduction programme less relevant. When reading the latest report from The World Economic Forum on the risks for 2008 I am convinced this logic will now start to gain more momentum.
According to the WEF there are 4 major risks to be aware of over the forthcoming decade. What is most disturbing is that all 4 will have an immediate effect on sourcing decisions.
In summary these are:
• Systematic Financial risk – this has already been well documented in recent weeks. The lack of liquidity in markets will have a negative effect on business investment and therefore increase capacity constraints in the global supply chain.
• Food Security – Global food prices are at record highs whilst stocks are at 25 year lows….”population growth, lifestyle changes, use of crops to manufacture bio fuels and climate change – are likely to sharpen over the coming decade”. There is already evidence of this in the UK. During the last 10 years land used for Agricultural purposes has fallen by 8%. In addition land still in use is increasingly being used for the production of Bio fuels. The price of wheat is at all time high. Furthermore during the same period the population has grown by 2m to 60m – this is predicted to grow to 69m by 2027!
As anicdotal evidence of the scale of the shift the other day I was at my son’s children party. When I was talking to one of the Dads he mentioned that an old colleague was, until recently trading currencies and he is now trading livestock in Australia…buying millions and millions of dollars of cattle one day and selling the next. What’s more is he is achieving higher returns than he was when he was trading currencies.
• Supply Chain Vulnerability – “Improvements in technology and global logistics, along with reduced trade barriers, have led to a historic expansion of international and intra-regional trade over the past 20 years”. Although this has widely been seen as a benefit the WEF are saying now our risks are too concentrated in core areas. For example the concentration of raw material ownership in the hands of say State controlled funds or the impact on wage price increases in China.
• Energy – the increasing demand for energy coupled with the requirement to reduce CO2 emissions is going to cause difficulties. I am already seeing the growth in the demand for specialist energy buyers to mitigate organisational risk. However when we see 17% increase in fuel bills universally applied by all suppliers, clear evidence of collusion in the market and what is worse more political influence on the supply it seems that such a move is now punitive.
I would like to add a fifth risk that since none of these risks were mentioned in the same report for 2007 volatility caused by globalisation should be added too!
From this it is quite clear that there is need for global supply chains to be more diverse and as mentioned before this can be achieved with decent (real time as possible) spend analysis. Furthermore this technology should be used to monitor production, commitments and deliveries. Reports should also include commitment further down the supply chain.
The use of sourcing optimisation technology is now essential and especially the use of “what if” scenarios is a must. In fact the speed of change could require optimisation scenarios to be computed more frequently and not just at the point of “award”. This would allow for the inclusion of such things like the effect of climate changes to raw material stocks or the increase in the average wage in China.
It is now obvious that it should be a priority to use both of these technologies. However what has struck me is that combining these technologies together would achieve far more powerful results. I don’t know the exact probabilities by my guess is that the benefits would be exponential and thus reduce the probability of major a catastrophe in a global supply chain.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Global Supply Issues/Risk, Optimization, Spend Analysis, Technology
January 28th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
There is an economic storm brewing and its called a recession. I believe Zig Ziglar once stated that experts have predicted 36 out of the last 2 recessions. The problem is, that nobody actually knows if we are in a recession until the economy is already pulling out of it. To start, I think it is important to understand some macroeconomic definitions:
Recession: a decline in any country’s gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year.
Stagflation: a period with out-of-control price inflation combined with slow-to-no output growth, rising unemployment, and eventually a recession.
Depression: “a recession is when you lose your job; a depression is when I lose mine.” - Newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris
In all seriousness, we look to be in the middle of a legitimate economic downturn which might, in retrospect, be a significant recession with a dash of inflation to make it really fun. I was discussing this issue with our COO, Jason Treida, who is of the opinion that this should be a very good time to really re-examine the reverse auction strategy and implementation. Basically, the theory goes that suppliers with less than full capacity production or deployment, will be very aggressive to gain/maintain business. In fact, many drop prices without provocation. This makes a lot of sense and the pressures being exerted on every company will force strong resulting pressure on many suppliers in the supply chain. However, it will only work consistently when applied to the proper supply markets which have those prior existing situations.
The global economy is much more complicated to distill into a basic maxim, however. So, I pinged Pierre Mitchell to bring a little class and panache to ESF, a nice change from the beer swilling alehouse that I call home. According to Pierre:
My POV is that it’s not a question that means much because the USD weakness and the rise of commodity prices does not lend itself to using RA’s for leveraged categories – a great strategy when riding deflationary markets – and unfortunately deflation is happening in the consumer markets but is being dampened by commodity prices from the back of the supply chain. Hopefully firms already have LTAs and other hedges in place – if not they need to find other things they bring suppliers than a checkbook. It is however a good opportunity to do better demand management and other broader cost reduction and innovation improvement efforts.
Excellent analysis, as usual. I just hope things do not get as bad as we are hearing the pundits prognosticate, or we may see the practice played out with live ammunition.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Global Supply Issues/Risk, Reverse Auctions, Supply Management Best Practices, e-Sourcing Marketplace
January 11th, 2008
David Bush - Iasta
Now it seems like there is a never ending stream of coverage on regarding “The China Price” for outsourcing the manufacturing production of various products. So, when I ran across this article in Fortune Magazine, I was not surprised by the content and story line but was happy to see supply management guru, Andrew Bartolini, of Aberdeen, quoted repeatedly. Obviously, Fortune is a mass audience publication and it is good to see Aberdeen, and Andrew, get some nice publicity outside of the niche of supply chain specific periodicals. Of course, the article is short and offers little depth on the topic, but that would be expected as it is not a research briefing. The gist of the article is about doing your due diligence before fully committing to China sourcing, which should come as no surprise. Congrats to Andrew for big timing us all!
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, Global Supply Issues/Risk
December 20th, 2007
David Bush - Iasta
Although I try to refrain from discussing Iasta or the Iasta solutions in this forum (as we have an entire website for that), I was pleased to notice that when reviewing Gartner’s 10 Strategic Technologies for 2008 (as reviewed in CRM Today), we’re already there with respect to at least four of the technologies and planning to be there with respect to five more in 2008. Furthermore, meeting these technology requirements has almost nothing to do with the specific sourcing functionality of the Iasta solution, and I can address all the points in general terms!
Here are the technologies where I think we’re already there:
- Web Platform & WOA
We’ve been on-demand SaaS since day one - even before WOA was a common term.
- Green IT
We’re a true multi-tenant SaaS application, which means we only need to have as many servers running as we need at any given time. Furthermore, our extensive use of virtualization technology in our new data centers means that we can bring new servers on-line quickly when they’re needed, and consolidate processes on a small pool of servers during non-peak periods (over weekends or holidays) to put unneeded servers to sleep until they’re needed again.
- Social Software
Oh, baby! That’s us. As far as we know, this was the first vendor initiated blog on the ‘net dedicated to informing sourcing professionals everywhere about e-Sourcing and best practices and the first to pick up a daily publication schedule. We were the first vendors to launch a wiki for the global sourcing community as a whole, and not just our own user base, with the sole intention of educating and improving sourcing professionals
everywhere. And even though we’re as unsure as everyone else about what comes next in enterprise Web 2.0 social software, you can be sure that when we figure it out, we’ll be there.
- Unified Communications
We’re already there in one regard, as evidenced by our seamless 24/5 support capabilities, and early adopters of IP telephony (as you can even skype me). However, once we move to bigger offices at the end of the year, you can be sure our new communications infrastructure will be up with the times.
Here are the technologies we’re working on:
- Real World Web
Our e-Sourcing application is available in real-time and is used in real-time every day by real people on real projects all over the world. How do you make it more real-world than that? We have the answer - it’s called Live Event 2.0. We have already released the full version of Smart Optimization and now we are developing our new Live Event platform that will integrate true real-time optimization and cost modeling in auctions in what we believe will be a whole new way.
- Virtualization 2.0
Although it’s hard to tell what the differences are between Virtualization 1.0, 2.0, and where we are, we have already started researching the technologies - software and hardware - that we will be bringing into our next major data center upgrade in 2009. Although we believe we’re already leading edge, especially on the software side, we recognize that there have been some great recent advancements in hardware as well and we are actively researching how we can make use of these technologies to serve our customers better and operate more green.
- Computing Fabric
Right now, we see this as just another aspect of Virtualization 2.0 and will definitely evaluate how this type of technology can improve our service while reducing our environmental footprint. Green is good for us - as it helps us keep our costs - and yours - down.
- Business Process Modeling
We’ve been making good use of this methodology over the past two years in the transformation of our support operations, and have recently been applying it to all other areas of our business - including product design and marketing - in efforts to ensure our entire business continues to operate in one unified manner on one central vision as we continue to double in client-base and size year-over-year.
- Metadata Management
We recognize the importance of a central data store to make supplier management and project creation even easier than it already is in our application, and in conjunction with our Supplier Management module (slated for release early next year), we have started the initial planning process on this module as well.
And here are our plans for the rest of the top 10:
- Mashup & Composite Apps
I’ll admit that this is one area we don’t really have a good handle on. The reality is that we have a seamlessly integrated suite built from the ground up on one common platform - a claim that very few vendors in the space can make (as most of our competitors have acquired anywhere between one and all of the modules they now offer for sale). We’re not sure how mash-ups could improve our service and performance, but it is on our radar and we are open to suggestions and comments.
I’d say that gives us a 9/10! However, this grade is just for fun, the real Gartner analysis for sourcing is being developed right now. I speak of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Applications. Now that the team is led by a prominent and well respected thought leader like Debbie Wilson, I expect this to be a great analysis of industry functionality. Unfortunately, Iasta will not qualify for the minimum revenue threshold that Gartner has established, so we will not be able to see our brightly shining star in the quadrant. However, I will be able to print it off and make a Sharpie dot in the upper right corner :). I suppose we could make a 50%, across the board price hike, and make the list, but that’s not really our M.O.
It is amazing how much the landscape has changed since the last quadrant in 2004, which really is not that long ago, but in the procurement applications market, things change by the Quadrant… I mean Quarter.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, Functionality, General, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace
December 14th, 2007
David Bush - Iasta
I do not usually recommend signing up for reading material, but am making an exception here today. I receive a newsletter from ARC Advisory, available for sign up here, which is packed so full of information that I have trouble looking at it during the work day and have to save it for a quieter, less hectic time.
In the latest issue, there were over 30 different articles available covering topics such as enterprise supply chain, IT, manufacturing and acquisition news. Some of the articles are available with details of the content, while others give some general information and allow download by ARC clients.
Its a very good summary of all the available research from ARC and well structured for easy scanning. ARC is quietly starting to cover more topics in supply chain and supply management and this newsletter is a good way to see the progress they are making in this field.
Entry Filed under: Analysts/Research, General, e-Sourcing Marketplace
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