CPO Rising’s Technology Round-Up series continues this week with fresh supply management technology news and updates covering a few recent major announcements. 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 info at cporising dot com. Thanks, and enjoy!
Innovations in Spend Management From SAP Help Customers Improve Productivity, Gain Insights and Boost Growth
LAS VEGAS — SAP SE announced updates to its spend management solutions to help companies collaborate strategically, increase productivity, manage compliance effortlessly, and gain business insights.
The announcements were made at SAP Spend Connect Live, one of the industry’s premier spend management conferences, held October 14-16 in Las Vegas.
The following updates were announced during the event:
SAP Embeds Generative AI Across Spend Management and Business Network Solutions
The company stated that SAP is embedding its generative AI copilot, Joule, across the SAP Ariba source-to-pay solution portfolio to make it easier for customers to manage routine inquiries, such as status updates, summarization, and frequently asked questions. Generative AI will be further infused into SAP Ariba solutions to recommend buying bundles and provide comprehensive supplier summaries.
New SAP Ariba Intake Management Solution Delivers Simplicity in Procurement
Also introduced was the SAP Ariba Intake Management solution to help transform how businesses handle employee requests and process orchestration, starting with procurement. With SAP Ariba Intake Management, employees have one place to go for procurement inquiries and visibility on status. The solution collects employee requests, orchestrates processes across heterogenous landscapes and applications, including all necessary stakeholders, and provides visibility on status while shielding employees from process complexity yet keeping them informed.
New SAP Business Network, Promote Subscription to Help Suppliers Grow their Businesses
On the supplier side, SAP Business Network will launch a new promote subscription with value-added features to help suppliers differentiate themselves, attract new buyers, and grow their businesses. With millions of companies conducting nearly $6 trillion in commerce annually on the SAP Business Network, promote presents a sizable opportunity for suppliers to accelerate growth.
Read the full announcement here.
Unimarket and VendorPanel Announce Merger to Provide Industry-Leading Source-to-Pay Solutions
ANNAPOLIS, MD — Unimarket, a global technology provider of spend management and e-procurement solutions, announced its merger with VendorPanel, a source-to-contract procurement platform. The merger combines the strengths of both companies to deliver a more robust source-to-pay solution, optimizing business processes and delivering tangible business outcomes for customers worldwide.
The company stated that the combined company now serves nearly 450 customers across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, in sectors such as corporate, education, healthcare, government, energy, facility management, transport, and utilities.
According to Phil Kenney, CEO of Unimarket, “Both companies bring over 15 years of expertise and a proven track record of delivering exceptional results,” he said. “This merger strengthens Unimarket’s ability to meet the evolving needs of our global customers, offering scalable solutions that capitalize on growing market opportunities.”
Sharing his excitement, James Leathem, CEO of VendorPanel, remarked, “Our merger with Unimarket provides an incredible opportunity to deliver even more value to our customers,” he said. “Our combined platform delivers a comprehensive solution that enhances visibility and drives operational performance across the entire source-to-pay process.”
Read the full announcement here.
SutiSoft Adds New Features to its Accounts Payable Solution to Streamline Key Operations
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — SutiSoft announced updates to its SutiAP solution, which aim to empower businesses to manage their accounts payable operations more effectively, reduce manual errors, and ensure timely financial transactions.
SutiSoft shared some of the updates to its SutiAP solution:
Auto-approve invoices. Invoices can be automatically approved from ‘Drafts’ with documents for the selected vendor, if allowed by the company administrator.
Auto-populate cost centers. SutiAP automatically populates PO-related cost centers in receipts and receipt-related cost centers in invoices. However, the quantity and unit price of PO line items must align with those on the invoice for accurate processing.
Track login details. The employee’s last login details can be tracked for audit trail purposes.
Track POs and invoices. The solution enables tracking of POs, PO & non-PO invoices, and reprocessed invoices.
Email notifications. SutiAP notifies users when invoices are moved to ‘Drafts’ and alerts users to the number of invoices read from the mailbox within a specified timeframe.
Tax for purchase orders. Users can now add tax amounts for purchase orders, provided they have the necessary permissions from the company administrator.
Read the full announcement here.
Omnea Raises $20M Series A to Take the Pain Out of Procurement and Supplier Management
LONDON — Omnea, an AI-powered procurement orchestration and supplier risk management platform, has raised $20M in Series A funding to make procurement painless and give companies greater control over their spend. Accel led the round, with participation from existing investors First Round Capital and Point Nine, who led the previously unannounced $5M seed round.
Omnea is also backed by angel investors David Clarke (former CTO of Workday), Claire Hughes Johnson (former COO of Stripe), and Anne Raimondi (COO of Asana). The funding follows a year of hypergrowth for Omnea, with the company’s revenue growing eightfold and impressive customer feedback on the platform’s user experience and business impact.
The company stated that most businesses today find the procurement experience extremely complex and difficult. This is because, in recent years, procurement has become increasingly decentralized, with legal, security, finance, ESG, and governance considerations to factor into every purchase. It currently takes an average of six months and the involvement of upwards of 11 stakeholders for a tool to move from identification to final purchase. This delay often pushes exasperated employees to disregard the procurement process, resulting in unnecessary supplier risk and shadow IT.
According to Ben Freeman, co-founder and CEO of Omnea, “Procurement is fundamentally broken, making it one of the least-loved processes in businesses today. Finance and procurement leaders are fed up with seeing duplicative suppliers, missed renewals, and manually managed procurement processes,” Freeman said.
“Omnea is meeting a critical need for companies of all sizes to get full control over their suppliers — not just in terms of spend, but also through the lens of information security and governance. We’ve seen significant early demand, and with our new AI capabilities and third-party risk management offering, we’re the only company in the space truly automating the full supplier lifecycle. We’re delighted to announce today’s funding so we can continue on our mission to take the pain out of procurement and supplier management once and for all.”
Read the full announcement here.
Exiger Acquires Versed AI to Boost Supply Chain Management with Advanced AI Technology
NEW YORK — Exiger, a supply chain and third-party risk AI company, announced earlier this summer the acquisition of Versed AI. Born out of the University of Cambridge’s Language Technology Lab, Versed AI’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology accelerates the process of extracting and aggregating multi-tier supplier networks, creating automated bills of material (BOM), and generating proprietary value chain graph data.
The company stated that the integration of Versed AI into Exiger’s supply chain management platform allows Exiger customers to rapidly expand multi-tier visibility with access to unrivaled advancements in supply chain tracing, orchestration, and mapping.
According to Brandon Daniels, Exiger CEO, “Procurement and supply chain professionals across the public and private sector are overwhelmed by the amount of data they have to navigate to meet daily operational and regulatory requirements like tariff analysis, alternative vendor sourcing, forced labor checks, environmental impact assessments, and CSDDD compliance,” he said. “This acquisition allows us to offer a beautifully simple solution to those challenges.”
Exiger has already begun integrating the technology into its supply chain platform and UX 1Exiger. The integration will enrich Exiger’s dataset and enhance the operational and multi-tier visibility capabilities of Supply Chain Explorer and SDX, making these solutions faster and more comprehensive. The new capabilities are immediately available to Exiger customers.
Read the full announcement here.
