CPO Rising’s Technology Round-Up returns today with 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!
Ivalua Refreshes its Source-to-Settle Platform with Release 160
Ivalua, the California and Paris-based spend management solutions provider, recently announced a series of enhancements and updates to its source-to-settle solution suite, dubbed Platform Release 160. Direct materials sourcing and procurement, contract management, procure-to-pay (P2P), invoicing, and data analytics and visualization were all said to be updated, which ought to lead to enhanced user experience (UI) and greater efficiencies.
Specific enhancements and updates include: for eProcurement — guided buying for direct materials procurement, and the ability to purchase multiple items via a single purchase order / requisition, including items located on hosted or punch-out catalogs; for invoicing — global compatibility covering multiple tax environments to drive compliance, and the ability to create an invoice directly from a contract; for contract management — enhanced collaborative capabilities for creating, editing, negotiation, and reviewing contracts, alerts, and commonality with Microsoft Word (including redlining); for supply chain collaboration — enhancements to Forecast Collaboration and PO automation; and for direct materials sourcing — the ability to manage a product’s bill of materials, including access to the related components, costs, and suppliers, driving a more collaborative engagement with suppliers and product teams.
Basware Gets “Smart” with Search and Guided Buying for eProcurement
Last month, Basware, the Finland-based business network and P2P solutions provider, made a couple of exciting announcements concerning its eProcurement solution that ought to enhance user interface (UI) and experience (UX). Most recently, Basware announced that it has added SmartSearch capability within its eProcurement tool that will allow users to conduct catalog searches more efficiently and boost UI / UX. A complex data model, underpinned by an advanced algorithm, steers users towards the optimal product that the algorithm/model has determined, in real-time, based on such factors as the supplier, price of the day, and even the product itself. When users conduct purchases, the eProcurement tool then sends individual line items on the resulting requisition / purchase order (PO) to the relevant approver, rather than generating one PO for the whole order and turfing it from one approver to the next.
Earlier in the month, Basware announced that it added a guided buying functionality to its tool in an effort to steer users towards products and services from established suppliers with which the enterprise has negotiated contracts. If the eProcurement tool can intelligently guide the buyer through the process, it can simplify options for line-of-business users who are less familiar with purchasing processes and policies and navigate them towards existing supplier relationships. As a result, guided buying functionality can help the line-of-business reduce maverick spending, drive contract compliance, drive spend under management contract, and ultimately realize more savings for the enterprise. In the end, Basware adding guided buying functionality to its eProcurement solution can be a value multiplier for procurement teams that have already done the hard work of identifying prime suppliers and negotiating cost savings on behalf of the enterprise.
Field Nation Introduces Industry’s First Total Workforce Management Platform
Field Nation, a Freelancer Management System (“FMS”) technology provider based in Minneapolis, recently announced that it has launched what it claims is the contingent workforce management (CWM) industry’s first “total workforce management” platform, Field Nation ONE. According to company officials, Field Nation ONE is a centralized workforce management platform that enablers users to manage every kind of worker an enterprise may employ — full-time employee (FTE), temporary workers, alumni/retirees, public and private contractors, service workers, W-2 workers, and so on. The platform provides enterprises with a dashboard that centralizes and segments all of their different kinds of workers. It then enables managers to source and route specific kinds of workers to different projects, and then manage them on separate workflows. It is this kind of solution that can help enterprises manage an increasingly “blended” workforce as the Future of Work looms large.
Bamboo Rose Releases Subscription-Based Innovation Platform
Late last month, Bamboo Rose, a Boston-area digital marketplace connecting retailers, suppliers, and third parties to quickly develop and deliver innovative products to consumer markets, announced that it is now offering its digital innovation marketplace via multi-year subscriptions. Enterprises can subscribe to the platform, which is available as either a cloud-based or on-premises solution, reduce their associated IT support costs, and the amount of spend wasted on unused applications and functionality. Enterprises that subscribe to the Bamboo Rose platform ought to have faster access to new innovations as they come online, as well as access to Bamboo Rose experts that can advise on the latest innovations and trends in the market. Subscribers also have access to a 360-degree view of a customer’s community, and have the ability to access training in order to take advantage of more features and functions on the Bamboo Rose platform.
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