CPO Rising’s Technology Round-Up returns today with an 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 are continually innovating the way that procurement and supply chain leaders and practitioners drive value, we’d love to hear from you. Please drop us a note at editor at cporising dot com. Thanks, and enjoy!
It’s a Go! Tradeshift Launches Go 2.0
Last month, Tradeshift, the San Francisco-based provider of supply chain payments and marketplaces, announced the release of Tradeshift Go 2.0, a virtual assistant application intended for mid-market companies that seek to simplify the procurement and travel booking experience (read our initial coverage from July 2016). As a refresher, Tradeshift Go leverages a combination of machine learning, automation, and human interface to allow users to make purchases and bookings and then coordinate review, approval, and payment in one location. It integrates with the same collaboration panel that is found across legacy Tradeshift applications, like its eProcurement app, Tradeshift Buy. Tradeshift Go’s plug-in also allows the app to work in browsers.
Tradeshift Go 2.0 essentially provides line-of-business users with access to company credit or payment cards in order to make sudden purchases or smaller purchases from multiple suppliers and vendors. It also provides employees with quick and direct access to reporting and approval workflows. In so doing, Tradeshift Go 2.0 provides extra visibility into and control over enterprise-wide spend that otherwise may have been conducted offline and expensed later. Tradeshift officials state that the value-add here is the time and labor reductions on filing, processing, and approving (or denying) expense reports, and can reduce a company’s long tail spend.
ICYMI: Icertis Receives $115 million in Series E Financing
In case you missed it, Seattle, Washington-based contract lifecyle management (CLM) SaaS provider, Icertis, announced last month that it has secured $115 million in Series E funding in a round co-led by investors Greycroft and Premji Invest, as well as a half dozen other existing creditors. Company officials stated their plans to invest these funds into the Icertis Contract Management (ICM) platform, as well as an assortment of industry-specific applications to help meet their unique needs. They also intend to further invest in the company’s Icertis Blockchain Framework, which integrates Blockchain digital ledger technology (DLT) with a contract management platform to drive contract compliance and supply chain visibility, among other value adds. Icertis leaders also want to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and other cognitive capabilities into the ICM. They want to scale their sales and marketing efforts globally to boost business development and build a partner ecosystem. And finally, Icertis leaders are looking to possibly finance acquisition opportunities within the contract management solution-provider space.
Enterprise Software Newcomer, Aavenir, Launches Intelligent CLM Solution
Also last month, Aavenir, an India-based provider of CLM and accounts payable automation solutions, announced the release of a cloud-based CLM solution for the ServiceNow Platform, its industry partner. Aavenir’s CLM Solution leverages machine learning and natural language processing capabilities to create and execute contract documents to deliver a streamlined user experience to a variety of enterprise users, including procurement teams. Machine-learning algorithms are programmed to flag individual clauses, terms, and conditions that would indicate a level of risk for the enterprise and that may otherwise go unnoticed.
OpenText, MasterCard Drive Supply Chain Finance for Global Auto Industry
OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX), an Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solution provider based in Ontario, Canada, and global payment card/services provider, MasterCard, recently announced a partnership to drive financial efficiencies across global supply chains within the automobile manufacturing industry. This is the first use case for the partnership that seeks to increase speed, compliance, and security for stakeholders as they transfer information, payments, and financing to one another across the global automotive supply chain. The partnership will integrate OpenText’s Business Network with MasterCard’s Track B2B global trade enablement platform to deliver the best of both worlds: access to vast networks of automotive suppliers that have the ability to access and manage their own profiles, and established methods to transact and conduct supply chain financing for buyers and suppliers.
Dust Identity Raises $10 million for Supply Chain Traceability Venture
And lastly, local tech startup, Dust Identity, recently received $10 million in Series A funding from Kleiner Perkins and the venture capital arms of Lockheed Martin and Airbus. The Framingham, MA-based solutions provider specializes in using minuscule diamond dust particles that are unique in their nature to link physical objects with digital records. The Diamond Unclonable Security Tag (DUST) solution works in tandem with optical scanners and cloud-based IT infrastructures, and can ultimately link to Blockchain-based DLT and “alternate frontier software platforms” to link digital supply chains with their physical, high-value objects. It will use this round of funding to further develop its unique supply chain track, trace, and product-verification tool, which would have wide application across heavily-regulated manufacturing industries, like the aerospace and defense, automotive, and consumer/commercial electronics sectors.
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Technology Round-up – March 23, 2017 (SAP Ariba Live Edition)
