Friday Rant — What’s Holding Ariba Back? (Part 1)
With its latest quarterly earnings announcement from last week, Ariba appears to be on a roll. While I plan to examine some of the details from the call and the earnings report in more detail next week along with the yearly and quarterly performance …
Handicapping the SAP/Oracle Procurement Race
In sports, it’s common to handicap competitors. This allows observers
of the game — not to mention those actually participating in the
festivities — to better understand how they stack up to their peers.
Now, many factors can comprise a ha…
Ivalua: The Broadest Spend Management Suite Vendor You’ve Never Heard Of (Part 1)
Over the past few months, I’ve had numerous correspondences with
Ivalua’s North American team as it’s started to pick up steam
Stateside. Ivalua, despite its
lack of brand recognition outside of the European market, offers one of
the mark…
A Thriving Procurement Function for the Next Five Years — Part 1: Do You Speak Finance?
What will a thriving procurement function look like over the next five or so years? I’d like to begin a dialogue here on this blog, hoping that a number of people can share their perspectives on what a thriving procurement function helps to make happ…
Why is SAP Prioritizing E-Sourcing in its Sourcing Portfolio? (Part 1)
At SAP’s Influencer Summit last week, one thing became quite clear
rather quickly in discussions with key SAP team members as well
as during the specific analyst and customer briefing on its latest
products. And that’s the fact that SAP is p…
SAP Influencer Summit, Dispatch 5: The SAP Procurement Portfolio (Part 2)
Last week I had the chance to get an update from SAP on the latest
positioning and solution elements of its overall procurement
portfolio. In this post, I’ll continue to share what I learned,
focusing on providing an update on the provider’s…
Friday Rant: Doubling Down on Spend Matters (Part 1)
There comes a time in the evolution of any idea — or business —
where rapid introspection is preferable to any long, drawn-out
goal-setting or visioning development process. Over the course of 24
hours in early November, I had one of these…
