Technology Round-Up – January 18, 2018

CPO Rising’s Technology Round-Up returns today with another assortment of supply management technology news and updates from the past month to share with our community. If you are a sourcing, procurement, or spend management solution provider and you have news to share with us, please drop us a note at editor at cporising dot com. Thanks, and enjoy!

GEP Partners with Amazon Business, Integrates Amazon Marketplace

We recently learned that GEP, the New Jersey-based provider of procurement software and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, has teamed with Amazon Business in an effort to integrate the Amazon Marketplace with Smart by GEP, the firm’s cloud-based source-to-settle technology suite. As a result of the integration, GEP customers will be able to access Amazon Marketplace from within Smart by GEP, allowing them to stay within enterprise policies and guidelines while taking advantage of the a wide selection of direct and indirect spend categories that are available through Amazon. It is the latest example of the continued consumerization of business software, a trend that will continue in 2018.

Tradeshift and Infosys Partner to Digitize Source-to-Settle Processes

Last month,  Tradeshift, the California-based provider of supplier collaboration networks, and Infosys BPO, India’s second-largest business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, announced a partnership to digitize procurement supply chain management operations. As a result of the partnership, Tradeshift and Infosys clients will be able to take advantage of Tradeshift’s cloud-based solution set as well as Infosys’s expertise in implementing technology projects as they transform (digitize) processes across source-to-settle and supply chain.

Bristlecone Launches “Anti-Fragility Index”

Here’s something you don’t see everyday: Bristlecone, the California-based provider of analytics, procurement, and supply chain consulting services, announced that it has launched the world’s first “anti-fragility index” aimed at helping customers quickly gauge supply chain risk. The index, launched last week, is the culmination of a nine-month effort with Bristlecone’s customers to analyze and benchmark supply chain risk and vulnerability and provide customers with a predictable tool to help them make business changes before it is too late. The Index analyzes more than 100 key performance indicators from 24 different business metrics and eight different operational measures of a particular business. The result is a score that evaluates a company’s risk in terms of vulnerability – the threat and the level of preparedness and resiliency in place to counter it.

OriginTrail Joins the Blockchain for Supply Chain Gang

Late last year, Serbia-based OriginTrail, which develops supply chain transparency and distributed ledger systems, announced that it has launched a purpose-built distributed ledger protocol for supply chain management. Described as “a decentralized, off-chain, peer-to-peer network,” it is said to link data from multiple, disparate blockchains and IT systems (like Ethereum and ERP, respectively), and transmit “fingerprints” of that data across this network. In doing so, this distributed network can allow multiple parties to leverage each other’s blockchains to track and trace products across various supply chains, from point of origin to point of sale. OriginTrail has already launched pilot programs in China to help map and track various food supply chains. And on January 15, the company held a token crowdsale to help the company scale its operations further.

ShipChain: A Blockchain Solution for Shipping and Logistics

Los Angeles-based shipping and logistics solutions provider, ShipChain, recently announced itself as a provider of Blockchain-based business solutions targeted at improving supply chain track and trace capabilities. ShipChain will leverage the Ethereum Blockchain as the main ledger and use it to run smart contracts through it among business partners that will also enable them to track and trace products and commodities as they traverse each end of a given supply chain. Customers can leverage ShipChain “sidechains” in order to store their own information off of the Ethereum Blockchan. ShipChain will also feature an open API architecture in order to enable widespread integration with existing enterprise information management systems, like ERP and MRO systems. The company is offering a token sale in January 2018 as part of its launch.

SutiSoft Updates Spend Management Platform

California-based SutiSoft, which provides cloud-based software solutions, announced a series of updates and upgrades for its SutiExpense business travel and expense management platform. Among the updates include the ability to import credit card transactions and reassign them to employees; the ability to define price per mile at various employee levels; the ability to dynamically add event attendees for future reference; an email log that records every email sent to employees via the system; and a GPS-enabled mileage calculator that automatically computes mileage driven and loads it into the final expense report.

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SutiSoft Launches New Spend Management Platform

Bristlecone Launches an AI Bot for Supply Chain Monitoring

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GEP Publishes Procurement Outlook for 2017

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