Procurement BPO: Be careful before sharing your proverbial corporate bedroom with another party
Procurement BPO engagements aren’t about dating. They’re about getting married, something we actually think many people don’t realize. Remember this one point, and your chances of success with procurement BPO will increase on a log scale. Never mistake a BPO relationship for advisory or software. You can scrap a consultant’s deck and trash a software [...]
Ariba Supplier Network Alternatives: SciQuest (Part 1)
This post is part of a fall 2010 series looking at Ariba Supplier Network alternatives, beginning with each provider’s basic background in the area. We will then examine their solution approach and Ariba/third party systems integr…
Meet the sourcing gangsters in Chicago
HfS has teamed with its networking partner, SSON, to present a superior discussion across the world of finance and sourcing, with Jay Desai, one of the buy-side’s most respected voices for sourcing governance, Capgemini’s own sourcing sherif David Pool…
Wednesday’s Whispers: People Whispers – March 2010
PEOPLE WHISPERS: MOVES, PROMOTIONS, AND MILESTONES* As always, thanks for your emails and alerts. If you’ve got a change or know of a promotion, keep dropping me a line! If you need a referral, and we’ve worked together in the past, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via Linked In. Ashesh Badani became Sr. [...]
Coupa Heads for the Clouds — eProcurement, T&E and Beyond (Part 2)
The most important functional announcement in Coupa’s latest release (you can read the first post in this series here) is a new expense reporting capability designed to provide organizations with an integrated system to help capture, in Coupa’s words…
First Index Shuts Down: History and Context
Yesterday, we reported that First Index, a sourcing marketplace for industrial parts and former consulting firm, had closed its doors earlier this week. My tip on the situation came from AJ Sweatt, a colleague and friend who serves as community and b…
Gartner’s Strategic Sourcing Magic Quadrant: Clarifying a Few Questions
On Tuesday, I got a number of questions from colleagues about Gartner’s Strategic Sourcing Magic Quadrant or “MarketScope”, as they’ve come to also call these types of 2/2 analyses. One question that kept coming up again and again was why Oracle was …
Gartner’s Strategic Sourcing Magic Quadrant: We Report, You Read and We All Decide
I usually have a more op/ed than reporting take on analyzing the news, but I thought I’d use this post to highlight some of the findings of Gartner’s latest Strategic Sourcing Magic Quadrant, authored by Debbie Wilson, to kick off the inevitable comm…
Are Outsourcing Vendors Throwing in the High-Value BPO Towel?
Over on Horses for Sources, entrepreneur-turned-stealth-researcher Phil Fersht* recently suggested that some big-name outsourcing firms might be tossing in the towel when it comes to selling and delivering higher value offerings that focus more on pr…
Friday Rant: The Straight Dope on Procurement and Supply Chain Conferences (Part 1)
I’m often asked my opinion on events and conferences. While I’ve
tackled this subject on Spend Matters a number of times, it
seems that I?m getting more and more questions lately from providers
about what events they should sponsor this year…
