Zycus held its annual user conference, Horizon, earlier this month at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida and it was another very successful event for the supply management solution suite provider. The event offered a blend of best practice presentation, keynotes, and networking in a nice and relaxing setting. Zycus also uses the event to provide an update on its plans, products, and company vision and noone is better equipped to deliver that message than Aatish Dedhia, Zycus’ CEO.
Aatish’s presentation style is generally understated, and this year’s keynote was no exception. But, beneath his cool, casual style this year was a more pointed message: Zycus is going after Ariba and Aatish believes it can win. Now, truth be told, this is a message that Aatish has communicated directly to me (and to other analysts) in various meetings and analyst events over the years. But, Horizon 2014 was the first time I can remember seeing Zycus push this message at a customer event.
Now, of course, most solution providers in our industry have their targets set on their larger competitors and every provider likes to share their wins against their bigger competitors. Aatish presented some numbers that indicate that Zycus is getting into more head-to-head face-offs with Ariba and that it is winning more than its fair share of deals. In Zycus’ own win-loss analysis, Zycus found that the top two reasons customers chose it over Ariba were because of end-user adoption concerns and Zycus’ overall responsiveness. Aatish then proceeded to show why he is so confident by sharing Zycus’ current product plans and vision.
Looking ahead to its 2015 mid-year release, Zycus has prioritized four areas across its suite: (1) Delivering a seamless suite user interface (“UI” ) which aligns with Zycus’ ease-of-use focus (2) Introducing a “card-based” UI that looks and operates like many Google applications where information is captured and presented within a frame or card in a dynamic fashion (i.e. information that appears on your dashboard will change based upon who you are, where you are, and what you should be doing). For a visual example of a card, look at how a google search often presents a wikipedia page summary on page one of the search results in a card format. This card-based design is very different than the traditional enterprise software dashboard and could be an interesting disrupter. (3) Offering suite-wide search and (4) Mobility.
Aatish’ confidence is also grounded in Zycus’ long history of steadily and successfully expanding its footprint. This started more than a decade ago when Zycus began to plan its expansion from its auto-classification roots and later delivered a leading spend analysis tool. It was then, in 2006, that Aatish hatched a “Rainbow Dream” (or plan) where Zycus would “focus on delivering software that is easy to use and covers all processes.” A few years later, Zycus’ new strategic sourcing suite was launched and soon winning competitive deals. More recently, Zycus has focused its expansion efforts on the development of a full P2P suite. And while work remains to get Zycus’ downstream solutions on par with their upstream ones, several companies have adopted the P2P offering in context of a full suite deal.
Aatish closed his presentation by reiterating Zycus’ commitment to its customers that the company is a long-term partner and has no intentions of selling itself. Aatish reiterated its promise that Zycus will continue investing heavily in the development of the full breadth and depth of its suite; that Zycus will remain agile and responsive; and that ‘ease-of-use’ principles will inform every product decision.
To win the pot of gold at the end of its rainbow (dream), Zycus has some work ahead of it. But if the rest of the Zycus team are only half as focused and committed as its CEO, the rainbow dream may become reality.
