A couple of weeks ago, I re-introduced Spend Matters readers to Supplierforce, a Dublin-based Spend Management software/SaaS suite provider and consultancy with particular strengths in the area of supplier information management. Today I’ll conclude my analysis by walking through some of Supplierforce’s functional capabilities and its overall solution philosophy and approach. When considering what Supplierforce is trying to do with its platform, it’s most important to remember they started by intending to make up for the shortcomings of procurement and supplier management in existing user ERP systems. In this regard, Supplierforce provides a virtual vendor master that allows users to push and pull data from multiple back-end sources to create a unified view of who their company is doing business with, in a way that is nuanced relative to other solutions.
By “nuanced,” I mean that Supplierforce does not just provide a virtual vendor master to search basic collected information (e.g., contact details, payment instructions, contacts, insurance certifications), but also provides a single portal to gain access into data on supplier spending, performance, and risk. This is one of the first instances I’ve seen of an offering that truly integrates supplier information management, spend visibility, supplier performance and supply risk. Granted, its individual modules may not go as deep in certain areas as other solutions, but what Supplierforce has done is prove that SIM-based solutions are more useful when they’re fully integrated into a procurement suite.
For spend visibility, Supplierforce applies its own, primarily services-driven, classification and cleansing capabilities to consolidate spend. Through a fairly simple reporting interface it then provides a snapshot of the suppliers with whom a company is doing business. The interface comes with the standard reports needed by organizations to gain basic spend visibility (e.g., largest suppliers, largest categories, non-compliance, PPV, etc.). The application doesn’t hold a candle to the analytics capabilities of a BIQ, but it does provide some basic analytics capabilities for analyzing opportunities and tracking progress…
