In late June, the 30 NBA teams spent an evening drafting the top college and international prospects in the world of basketball. In many ways, selecting the right supply management solution(s) is like the NBA Draft. There are published reports and there are experts and there is coverage of the market (As our loyal readers know, Ardent Partners does all three of these things and we believe we compare favorably to others both large and small in the market). And, just like the NBA draft, decisions are high-profile and have a lasting impact — selecting the right solution can drive a multi-year transformation, just as selecting the wrong solution can drive a procurement or P2P team directly into a ditch and cause a few heads to roll.
This brings us to our first annual CPO Rising Hot Tech Prospect list where we introduce and analyze the hot new prospects in the supply management technology market for 2014. Before we begin, let’s answer the big question — What’s the criteria for selecting a new prospect? [Sidebar: please feel free to direct any additional questions to me or editor@]
First, the emphasis here is on “new” when we use the term prospect; as such, established providers who have been successfully selling their solutions for years are not eligible (they were drafted years ago and are seasoned veterans if we are to continue the NBA analogy). Second, like the top picks in this year’s NBA draft, the members of our “CPO Rising Class of 2014” have had their early successes and are now ready for the big leagues (literally).
The solutions provided by each Class of 2014 member vary, but what unifies them is that, over the past 12-18 months, each has arrived or graduated fully into the competitive supply management enterprise technology market (Note: There is context in the evaluation as our analyst team has been following each of these providers since their earliest days). What also unifies this year’s draft class is that we believe that each prospect is worthy of your consideration when you run your next supply management tech RFPs and select your supply management solutions. Ladies and gentlemen, your CPO Rising Hot Tech Prospect: Class of 2014.
CPO Rising Hot Tech Prospect (2014) — Taulia
Prospect “Bio:” Founded in 2009, Taulia is a San Francisco-based company with international offices in Dusseldorf, Germany, and London. The cloud-software provider focuses on automating the accounts payable process; their solution set includes supply chain finance, supplier information management, eInvoicing, dynamic discounting, and supplier self-services. Taulia’s early focus was on the SAP customer base, which resulted in them developing solutions that could directly embed into an SAP back-end. With over 150 customers worldwide, Taulia states that it has $230 billion in spend flowing through its platform and currently supports integration with Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, NetSuite, and other ERP systems.
Ardent Partners Expert Analysis: Taulia offers a broad suite of solutions that enable buyers and suppliers to transact, communicate, and collaborate across all invoice processing activities. Their solutions employ modern and secure cloud-based technology and intuitive user interfaces as a means to maximize adoption of the solution by both buyers and suppliers. Taulia specializes in helping buying organizations increase early payment discount capture through its platform, utilizing advanced dynamic discounting and cash management capabilities. These solutions are core components of Taulia’s customer value proposition and help the company create value for buyers and suppliers alike. While it has a strong “buy-side” offering, Taulia views suppliers as important stakeholders in P2P process automation too and offers suppliers a fee-free, cloud-based portal as the primary means for suppliers to connect and transact with their customers. Taulia has made some significant strides as a provider of dynamic discounting solutions and is well-positioned to continue its momentum in the larger P2P market with its expanded suite. We congratulate Taulia as our fifth and final CPO Rising 2014 Hot Tech Prospect.
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