GEP Publishes Procurement Outlook for 2017

On February 8, GEP, a New Jersey-based provider of procurement software and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, published its annual business and economic outlook and analysis of implications for procurement and sourcing teams, dubbed “GEP Procurement Outlook 2017 – Global Supertrends and Their Implications.” The report explores economic and geopolitical factors, including instability, that permeate the global business environment in 2017 and have the potential to impact sourcing, procurement, and supply chain teams. It also features an analysis of nine sourcing categories and their outlook for the year ahead. Interested readers can access the report for free by clicking here.

SciQuest Rebrands as Jaggaer

On Tuesday, February 7, SciQuest, the North Carolina based eProcurement spend solutions company announced that it has rebranded itself has Jaggaer (pronounced “jagger”). The rebranding comes about six months after SciQuest was acquired by the private-equity firm Accel-KKR and taken off the publicly-traded stock exchange. Jaggaer, which company officials derived from the German word for hunter, is said to reflect the company’s promise of delivering a comprehensive, yet focused spend solution for a broad range of businesses. When we spoke with Jaggaer’s CMO, Steve Lundin, he talked about looking to break away from the perceived higher-education and life sciences niche market that had been associated with SciQuest. In its 22 years of operations, it has expanded off its expertise in higher education and turned the corner into all commercial markets.

As Lundin explained, more than 50% of Jaggaer’s customers are in commercial markets and it is something they are looking to continue to grow. With an aggressive roll out of features for their comprehensive suite of solutions, Jaggaer’s leaders plan to provide businesses from multiple verticals, (including life sciences, manufacturing, CPG, retail, higher education and pharmaceuticals) the chance to choose a solution for a specific need, with the opportunity to bundle different options together and provide a more comprehensive solution. It has been a busy six months for the company, but this rebrand and the rollout of new features to follow are the next steps in providing a simpler and more comprehensive platform for customers.

Coupa Announces Release 17 for Spend Management Software

On January 24, Coupa Software, one of the leading supply management solution providers in our industry, announced Release 17, its first major update of its cloud-based spend management software for 2017. Like Release 16 and others before it, Release 17 incorporates customer and user feedback through Coupa Advisory Boards. Key Release 17 features include:

• Perfect Fit Insights – an early-access program that provides select users with actionable recommendations on how to improve key performance metrics;
• Expanded Regulatory Compliance – new/updated templates for tracking regulatory compliance in several European and Southeast Asian countries;
• Enhanced Supplier Collaboration – Release 17 features expanded communication windows with suppliers at the beginning and end of the bidding process, as well as the ability to send suppliers alerts and updates via SMS/text messages;
• Additional System Administrator Functionality – enterprise users can now configure the Coupa platform to meet their unique organizational needs, such as the ability to manage travel and expense approvals, company branding, and mandatory einvoicing fields.

Hubwoo Announces Fourth Quarter 2016 Financial Results

On January 30, Hubwoo (Euronext: HBW.NX), the Paris-based provider of spend management and business process automation solutions for the cloud that is owned by Perfect Commerce, announced financial results for the fourth quarter of 2016. Hubwoo officials attributed decline in revenue and in the SaaS component to the lapse of customer contracts and ultimately to the company’s technology transition that it had undergone in the last several quarters. Fourth quarter highlights include:

• €4.8 million in consolidated revenue, compared to €5.8 million in 4Q 2015, or a -18% difference year-over-year
• €4.4 million from SaaS solutions, compared to €5.2 million in 4Q 2015, or a -16% difference year-over-year
• €0.4 million from services, compared to €0.7 million in 4Q 2015, or a -35% difference year-over-year

Basware Provides 2016 Financial Performance Results

On February 1, Basware, the Finland-based provider of e-invoicing and purchase-to-pay solutions, announced financial results for the calendar year 2016 on a conference call. Ardent Partners dialed into the call and heard highlights as delivered by Basware’s CEO, Vesa Tykkyläinen. At a high level, Vesa attributed Basware’s performance to “strong growth in cloud revenues,” which were nearly half of all revenues Basware saw in 2016. Year highlights include:

• €148.58 million in net sales, compared to €143.41 million in net sales for 2015, a 3.6% year-over-year increase
• €2.06 million in adjusted EBITDA, compared to €12.21 million in adjusted EBITDA for 2015
• Cloud revenue growth of 26.9 percent, which was 44.6% of net sales
• Recurring revenue of 73.6%, which was 67.8% of net sales

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