Similar to the Ariba LIVE conference last year, one of the main themes at the Ariba LIVE 2013 conference was again that Ariba, now an SAP company, is making it easier than ever for companies to connect to the Ariba Network and collaborate. Accordingly, Ariba and Dell Boomi announced that they are teaming up to deliver pre-packaged integration as a service offering for selling organizations.

Designed to simplify and speed up integration to the Ariba Network, the Ariba Integration Connector, powered by Dell Boomi Integration Packs, aims to enable companies to collaborate more efficiently. The first available connector, which integrates with Intuit QuickBooks, was officially unveiled at Ariba LIVE 2013. Additional connectors to enable sellers who own Microsoft Dynamics GP and Sage 50 (a.k.a., Sage Peachtree) to integrate with the Ariba Network are planned to be released later this year.

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In its early days in the 1990s during the first wave of trading exchanges (anyone still remember the crash and burn of Commerce One?), SciQuest used to help manage procurement and inventory management for reagents, those substances or compounds that are added to a system in order to bring about a chemical reaction (or are added to see if a reaction occurs). SciQuest’s Enterprise Reagent Manager (ERM) is a procurement-focused chemical inventory solution used by seven of the world’s top ten life science organizations and leading higher education institutions.

SciQuest has since quite expanded its industry savvy and spend management functional footprint to now be a leading provider of cloud-based business automation solutions. Staying true to its roots, SciQuest and eMolecules just announced a partnership to make eMolecules’ catalog of in-stock molecular building blocks available within SciQuest’s ERM platform. As a result, ERM users can now directly purchase in-stock molecular building blocks via eMolecules’ market-leading database.

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SciQuest, a leading public provider of cloud-based business automation solutions, has announced the next major version of its spend management product suite. The latest version includes a redesigned user interface (UI) with consumer-like features and experiences similar to popular Web sites such as Amazon, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In short, SciQuest is bringing a consumer-like experience to business-to-business (B2B) shopping. Read the rest of this entry »

PROACTIS now helps more than 120 public sector organizations managing £15 billion of public sector spend in the UK and over 100,000 suppliers to streamline their source-to-contract and purchase-to-pay processes to achieve better value and control. The most recent win was at the Flintshire Council,  and now 20 out of 22 local authorities in Wales use PROACTIS.  Read the rest of this entry »

The landscape of the supply chain has changed drastically over the past five years. It went from local to global in manufacturing, procurement, sourcing, logistics, and customers. As such, there are some major challenges in the supply chain network: Read the rest of this entry »

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If this proverb were applied in today’s operations, every organization would be in a reactive mode of maintenance and work against the lean manufacturing concepts.

Any breakdown or downtime on the manufacturing floor, in the warehouse, in transportation, or any other business process will create missed customer commitments, failed deliveries, idle time, and lost labor hours. Instead of taking the risk and being in reactive mode, wouldn’t it be nice to have systems or procedures through which an organization can know the status of its equipment? In today’s fast-paced market environment it’s beneficial for organizations to know which equipment needs preventative or scheduled maintenance for better planning, commitment, and allocation of resources. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced common supply chain challenges and resulting spend management opportunities for companies of all sizes. The article then went into the philosophical and functional differences (if any) between the “spend management” and “supplier relationship management (SRM)” monikers. Further discussion was about what exact functional parts of this software category small and medium enterprises (SMEs) might need.

The real question should always be, “Do we manage spending and, if so, what solutions do we use to do it?” To my mind, sourcing, procurement, and spend analysis capabilities cover most of the spend control needs for midsized enterprises. Read the rest of this entry »

My previous blog entry about procurement commandments in a down economy also made me think about whether there are different priorities for the chief procurement officer (CPO) during prosperous economic times. Or, how different are (or should be) the CPO’s strategies in good versus bad times?

Well, the CPO’s fundamental objectives do not change: procure the physical goods and services needed by the company at the best possible mix of price and performance (non-price features). The focus can shift at times from operational streamlining to new product introduction (NPI) to supplier rationalization.

In lean times, however, there will be pressure to do even more with less, postpone large expenditures, and get additional concessions from suppliers (e.g., better shipping rates, rebates, discounts, or better payment terms, etc.). Amid all of this, the CPOs must provide high-quality service guidelines to their employees to encourage the proper use of systems and policies, and to reduce maverick purchasing practices. Read the rest of this entry »

Many CFOs, CTOs, supply chain managers, and logistics managers struggle to decide which supply chain management (SCM) software is best-suited to their organizational needs. It doesn’t help that there is an abundance (literally hundreds) of SCM solutions available on the market. Today, I’ll help you understand key SCM modules, and look at some key players with well established SCM solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous blog post, I discussed two approaches to bringing down the overall cost of your supply chain (by using either cost-cutting or -reducing methods). Another blog was about bringing cost down by using better or best inventory management processes and practices. As we have already discussed the methods, processes, and practices, let’s look now at some of the technological aspects of reducing cost.

The first question that comes to mind is: will supply chain software help reduce the cost of the supply chain? So the riddle is to have or not to have supply chain software within your organization…? Read the rest of this entry »

Yes all of us are well aware that the global economy is in a downturn. We hear it in the news, on blogs, in articles, and we see it around us with massive layoffs and lower consumer spending. So while we have heard all about these problems, what is the solution to fix these issues from an enterprise point of view? Read the rest of this entry »

As is the case with white papers, vendors’ press releases (PR) can range from blatant bragging about the “latest-and-greatest” product capabilities (and other marketing “fluff”) to tastefully asserting competence and educating the market about specific issues.

One example of the latter would be Emptoris‘ April 2008 PR on the findings  of a panel of financial and procurement experts that have worked and consulted with leading Fortune 1000 companies. These experts offered their advice to chief procurement officers (CPOs) on actions to take to weather, and even excel in, a potentially uncertain economic environment.

The expert panel participated in a brainstorming session with leading financial, technology and procurement consultants to offer a list of immediate and intermediate steps that companies can take to gain greater control over spending and effectively reduce costs. Read the rest of this entry »