Top 10 Beyond Procurement and Supply by beyond!

TOP 10 BEYOND PROCUREMENT & SUPPLY

TECHNOLOGY

Issue 15 Winter 2018

Your Trusted Solution Provider The Future of Procurement: Solu ons Roll Call P.20

The 10 Things You Need to Know When Responding to RFPs

Brian Smith VP of Opera ons ASC

Centralized Procurement Will Drive the Future of B2B Procurement Industry P.58

P.30

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EDITOR’S CORNER

ver the last decade or so, the procurement landscape has garnered a lot of attention for managing costs and eradicating any and every risk of supply chain management. A sound procurement provider lays down the foundation upon which a company’s success depends upon. We understand the importance of procurement services, which has enabled or rather allowed organizations to operate in a proﬁtable and eﬀective manner. Hence, it is imperative for us, here at Beyond Exclamation, to celebrate the incredible journeys of such procurement companies that goes beyond the conventional way to make the exclamation happen through this magazine titled “Top 10 Beyond Procurement & Supply”. The issue highlights some of the leading service providers in the procurement space, which are playing a fundamental part in the supply process and aiding organizations with its services. Featuring as the Cover Story, we have ASC Networks Inc., a trusted solution provider of omni-channel contract lifecycle management (CLM), document management (any type of document or form: RFXs, quotes, orders, legal, corporate), quality management and analytics. The company has been delivering tailored contract, document, and form management solutions for more than 25 years. Aside from this, we have pioneering companies like Choice Energy Services, CityMart, Greenlight Medical, Innovation Centric Group, Promost, and Safal Softcom, who are shaping the procurement landscape with their innovative approach and solutions. In addition to these, we have some of the most thought-provoking articles from various leading industry experts.

Editor in Chief CHRISTINE [editor@beyondexclamation.com]

Managing Editor JACK [jack@beyondexclamation.com]

Art Director VIJAYKUMAR [design@beyondexclamation.com]

Graphic Artist NICK [nick@beyondexclamation.com]

Project Manager JENNIFER [jennifer@beyondexclamation.com]

Development Manager JUSTIN [info@beyondexclamation.com]

Dive into the magazine and start scrolling through the journeys of these inspiring companies!

CONNECT!

Jack London www.beyondexclamation.com BeyondExclamation @BeyondEx Beyond Exclamation beyondexclamation

In addition to our print magazine, we also provide relevant industry news and updates, as well as some thoughtprovoking articles and blogs on our website. Make sure to follow the same as we at Beyond Exclamation are looking forward to interact with our readers. Let’s connect on the web!

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inside... Business Boulevard

B E O N 10

Your Trusted Solution Provider

Omniscient Voyage

RedeďŹ ning City Procurement

Simplifying Hospital Procurement

Excellence Causeway

20 The Future of Procurement: Solutions Roll Call

24 The Choice of Business Success

Newsmakers Locale

50 A Pro in the Procurement Space

Younick Corner

Y D

30 The 10 Things You Need to Know When Responding to RFPs

34 Delivering Value with Innovative Procurement Solutions

DeďŹ nitive Destination

54 Thinking Different to Make a Difference

58 Centralized Procurement Will Drive the Future of B2B Procurement Industry

Your â&#x20AC;&#x2DC; Trustedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Solution Provider We have been delivering tailored contract, document and form management solu ons for more than 25 years.

Brian Smith VP of Operations ASC

ounded in 1992, ASC Networks Inc. (ASC) is an omnichannel contract lifecycle management (CLM), document management (any type of document or form: RFXs, quotes, orders, legal, corporate), quality management and analytics provider. The company’s initial focus was providing the telecommunications sector with quality products, professional services and managed solutions for order management, provisioning and problem management. This evolved into a focus on developing custom contract management software solutions for leading communications, ﬁnancial services, and energy and utilities companies. This experience became the nucleus for ASC Contracts, a web-based, enterprise-ready CLM platform that provides a rich suite of tools to automate and simplify the complete buy-side, sell-side and enterprise-wide lifecycle and business processes associated with creating and managing contracts, legally binding agreements and documentation in management focus to now include end-to-end solutions for CLM, document general. This original platform is management, RFX document creation, form management, vendor the core engine for the overall management and pricing and quoting management. Beyond Exclamation ASC oﬀering. looks at the pioneering journey of ASC and its pathway towards success in the procurement landscape. Over time, ASC’s portfolio grew from the original contract

Solutions Meant for Customer Satisfaction In addition to the recognized ASC platform based portfolio and the company’s happy reference customers, ASC’s continued success has been built on its "rapid prototyping" approach driven by an Agile development methodology, ISO quality management process, unparalleled results-focused accountability and a commitment towards delivering successful, tailored outcomes. Brian Smith, the VP of Operations at ASC, mentions “Our

approach with our customers is one of partnership and the voice of the customer is very important to ASC. We listen to our customer advisory and internal review boards as well as feedback from constant surveys with customers, debriefs with prospects and assess market/competitive trends to ensure continuous UI/UX forward movement and the enhancement of our oﬀering with innovative new and improved features.” The ASC CLM solution roadmap focuses on ensuring a market‐leading technical feature set and constant innovation as well as responsiveness to market and client driven needs. The CLM solution

has a quarterly release process which focuses on smaller incremental changes rather than large annual releases. “We put a big emphasis on following the market, engaging with analysts, listening to our customers, encouraging the team to innovate (including with innovation day competitions) and assessing emerging technologies such as artiﬁcial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing for integration possibilities. We also have formalized roadmap review meetings bi-weekly with our internal review board and quarterly with our customer advisory board to validate and prioritize our product development direction,” Brian adds.

A Journey Full of Opportunities ASC has had and continues on an incredible journey. It fosters a culture of teamwork and innovation, work-life balance (flex hours, virtual office arrangements, kids and dogs visiting the office, teambuilding activities, etc.), oneto-one connections and partnership focus with its customers, etc., and this drives a committed and tightknit “family” keen on delivering best-in-class solutions. Speaking about the challenges, Brian recalls “A critical objective was ensuring that we had the scalability and financial flexibility to ensure we optimized on our

hosted solutions, IT, product delivery, quality assurance, and customer support services and has been integral to the success of all implementation projects for crossindustry public and private sector customers.

significant growth potential and intended market acceleration path.” The acquisition by Mediagrif with its complementary expertise and financial strength to invest in ASC now and in the future amplified ASC’s ability to deliver innovative solutions that transform the contract lifecycle management industry and further enhances ASC’s abilities to deliver leadingedge solutions across industries. As for the achievements, the biggest amongst all has been the smoothness of the acquisition, the intercompany collaborative approach, and the quick strides toward integration with the Mediagrif technology backbone

which enabled ASC to now provide a complete source-to-contract oﬀering to its customers.

Brian’s best practice knowledge in CLM and source-to-contract is extensive. In addition to leading the operationalization of customers’ CLM and source-to-contract solutions, Brian has direct experience in managing contracts and solicitation services with his oversight on MERX and ASC contracts, agreements and procurement needs. Brian has also been responsible for contracting, solicitation, and supply chain management throughout his career in roles where he led and procured goods and services to ensure ontime and on-budget solution and product delivery.

Turning Experience into Success With more than 30 years of experience in operations, IT, product development, customer implementations, quality assurance, and professional services to call upon, Brian Smith -- VP 1 Operations, ASC and MERX -oversees all operations related to the successful delivery of managed and hosted solutions that drive CLM and source-to-contract process transformations for both SMEs and large enterprises. Prior to this role, Brian oversaw ASC’s

Footnote1 Leading Canadian electronic bid management tool and sister company of ASC.

Prior to ASC, Brian served as the Board member, CTO, and VP of R&D at Gridpoint Systems (now part of Ciena). Brian began his technology career as a software developer at Mitel. From there he moved to Newbridge Networks (now Nokia) where as AVP, Service Management, he developed some of the ﬁrst telecom service management products. Syndesis Limited (now Subex Ltd.) then recruited him as the Senior Vice President of R&D and Professional Services and he was instrumental in

“We aim to be the best; we want to build the best so ware to help companies become be er while maintaining a true focus on value for money and customer rela onships.” their evolution into a global OSS company. Brian holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Waterloo. Most importantly, Brian brings a passion for people and technology innovation to the table. His focus has always been to work in the top developmental labs, collaborate with the best engineers and developers, and innovate and produce leading-edge technology to drive a better future for everyone. Brian’s people and process leadership skills quickly earned him a spot in the executive ranks and like many tech innovators and business entrepreneurs, while he started in hardware, he felt a calling to harness his hardware-focused success to help realize the promise

of software -- SaaS in particular -in driving businesses eﬃciency and agility. The timing was right to join ASC, a company focused on building the most technologically advanced document management and workﬂow platform to help businesses gain control of their contracts. The rest is history.

Best-in-class anchors for CLM and electronic bids or tendering

Easily integrates with existing and future systems/processes

Flexible data integration and manipulation options

Easily tuned (conﬁgurable and brandable) to each customer’s exact terms and requirements

Standardized templates and processes for any procurement and contracting category

Complemented by a full suite of professional consulting services

Unmatched Beneﬁts and Features The ASC portfolio comprises a suite of individual modules used independently or combined to deliver a complete esourcing solution. Key beneﬁts include: Ÿ

Enables a transformative 360degree perspective of needs, supply, risks, contracts, invoices, spend and vendor performance

The ASC contract management module enables ﬂexible contract

creation including a smart formbased interface, logical parent-child hierarchies, and context-relevant tips to help guide users intuitively through their contract requests and subsequent workflow. Wizarddriven content authoring, offline forms and other features are also available to ensure users are using pre-approved legal templates (MSAs, NDAs, SOWs, quotes, orders, etc.) with the latest terms and conditions. Striving to be the Best “At ASC we don’t aim to be the biggest; the ASC executive team comes from very large companies where we witnessed firsthand how size can stagnate a company. We aim to be the best; we want to build the best software to help companies become better while maintaining a true focus on value for money and customer relationships,” asserts Brian. The ASC vision is to provide a fully integrated source-to-contract offering that is user-centric and ensures a focus on constant innovation and remaining at the top of the pack in terms of features and technology advances. The company wants to emphasize its out-of-thebox capabilities for any-sized company while maintaining its unique ability to quickly configure solutions that are an exact match to the customer needs. The company intends to continuously extend the value of the platform for broader, continued application and benefits for its customers.

Catherine Geanuracos Serial Co-founder

The Future of Procurement: Solutions Roll Call

s part of preparing for a panel at the 2018 Code for America Summit, I compiled a list of the many new platforms, initiatives, and strategies that are being tested and implemented designed to improve technology in government — by improving technology procurement. Now as 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to revisit this list and update it with new programs, companies, and initiatives. At Code for America, I moderated a panel titled “Industry Standards: What criteria should governments use when evaluating technology vendors?” If we are going to build a government tech market for the digital age, we must clarify a set of standards that support the kinds of interoperable, sustainable, resilient technologies we value. How should people procuring technology for government at the state and local levels think about selecting contractors/ suppliers? Using a values-based approach, we workshoped a set of baseline evaluation criteria and explored contracting strategies, with the goals of supporting accountable and eﬃcient procurement, preventing bad actors from abusing the public trust, foregrounding companies who make commitments to ethical services, and broadening the vendor pool to include startups and small businesses. The panel was made up of startups and vendors (like me, talking about how we built our entire business model to help governments avoid a full RFP/ procurement process to use our technology) and Matt Polega from Mark43 (which is promoting

cross-jurisdictional collaboration through its cloud-based platform, and learning a lot about procurement along the way). We’ll have representatives from local government (Michael Owh, the new Chief Procurement Oﬃcer for the City of Los Angeles, who comes from doing similar work in NYC) and from a federal representative as well (Alla Goldman Sieﬀert who leads procurement for 18F.). Sky Kelley, CEO/ Founder of Avisare, one of the new two-sided marketplace companies hoping to shake up how procurement works discussed the growing trend of referral/ ratings/ discovery systems for solutions and technology.

save money, headache and time if you can ﬁnd one that works. ●

Be honest about your team’s internal technical capacity, and bring in outside (nonvendor) expertise from private sector technology adviors or other governments if you need it.

●

Make sure you don’t inadvertently exclude startups, small businesses, minority/ women-owned and local businesses by relying on outdated contracting requirements (years in operation, staﬀ size).

Our takeaways include: ●

Be strategic about when you need to build something new (a rarer and rarer occurrence) and look to use platforms, SaaS (software as a service) tools, or customize or combine existing products

●

Write RFPs with detailed problem scopes, not long feature lists

●

Break large projects up into smaller, more manageable contractual chunks

●

When possible, test out technologies (like CityGrows) that don’t require up-front payments and/or are under your government’s limits for doing a full-blown RFP process. You will likely

Below is the round-up post I put together before the panel, with a few new additions. I’m absolutely sure I’ve (still) missed something — so PLEASE share suggested additions to these lists and I’ll add them. Also just want to give a quick thank you to Mariel Reed for her post on how Governments are Finding New Ways to Work with Entrepreneurs that helped me think about how to organize all the things that are happening. For me, the new procurement options fall into 4 basic categories: Government- initiated experiments and practices Ÿ Vendor and corporate initiatives Ÿ Two-sided marketplaces Ÿ The next frontier

Government initiated procurement experiments:

Many of the programs highlighted in Mariel’s article could fall in this category, so I won’t recreate her lists, but there’s more than just engagement with startups that governments are exploring. Most of the progress on this front has come on the federal level, and is now starting to trickle down to state and local practice. Here are some of the highlights: Prizes and challenges: From Challenge.gov to local eﬀorts, prizes and challenges are opportunities for non-traditional vendors to showcase new solutions, get funding, and potentially begin building contractual relationships. There are a ton of these initiatives, from single-day hackathons (unlikely to create lasting vendor relationships) to multi-month challenges (more successful). Implementing new procurement playbooks and principles: The U.S. Digital Services’ CIO Playbook is probably the best-known of these, and goes beyond procurement. It’s being used as a guide by all levels of government. We’re seeing state-level contracting being broken up into smaller chunks and design thinking being valued at the local level, too. But there’s a long way to go before these best practices are widely implemented. Startup-in residence programs: These are concrete engagements that sometimes lead to real contractual relationships (Hack the Beach resulted in CityGrows’ developing a multi-year, multi-contract relationship with the City of Santa Monica), and the same has been true for many of the graduates of the Bay

Area-based Startup in Residence (STiR programs). Civic Innovate’s STiR program expanded this year to more than 80 challenges from governments across the country. It’s great to see so many organizations beginning to work with startups. Cooperative purchasing organizations: Governments have been part of organizations such as http://www.uscommunities.org for a long time, and many rely on their collaborative negotiating power to get better deals on goods and services…but their business models may not be a good ﬁt for technology procurement. Will it be possible to evolve them to support the next era of procurement? CoProcure seems to be creating a marketplace of cooperative purchasing agreements already in place, which would allow more governments and agencies to make use of existing agreements. Often though, these agreements aren’t used by startups or new entrants into markets. We’re looking forward to seeing the full product when it’s out of beta - agencies are able to sign up now to test it out. Vendor, corporate, and other outside initiatives Contract aggregators and consultants: In addition to purchasing cooperatives (initiated by governments) there are contract aggregators and consultants (like Insight) who’ve built a business by easing some of the procurement and contracting process for cities like LA. Some some governments clearly see value in what they oﬀer, and

when they let governments reuse contracts that may result in signiﬁcant cost savings — but it’s of course not always transparent what the cost-beneﬁt is for government users.

Govlaunch has created a marketplaces where governments can read content about better technology and see which vendors are new, trending, and adding more solutions.

SmartProcure/ Gov$pend: This company helps vendors see existing purchase orders and contracts, allowing potential suppliers to track competitors and develop pricing strategy, because of the public nature of government contracts. Vendors pay to access this publicly available data that the ﬁrm has aggregated.

CityMart and Bee Smart Cities are each creating solutions-focused databases for governments to learn from and repurpose successful programs and procurements from others.

GovList helps governments with the front end of procurement; developing solicitation documents. Will ProTech Innovation Labs (that’s Procurement Tech!) sponsored by the Public Spend Forum, Dcode, and the Shatter Fund produce the next great procurement innovation company? They hosted an event over the summer and are continuing to build out content and programs.

Marketplace.City is another initiative that showcases civic success stories and vendor capabilities, and will be the home for stories about a new Innovation Ecosystem initiative from the National League of Cities and Schmidt Futures.

Two-sided marketplaces: Inspired by the success of two-sided marketplaces (AirBnB for temporary homestays, for example, connects travelers looking for lodging with individuals with space for guests, to the beneﬁt of both and to the platform), several new companies are exploring whether this model can work for government procurement. Avisare seeks to connect small businesses (particularly minorityowned business) into government contracts, redressing the imbalance in federal and state spending.

Atlas features infrastructure-focused solutions and companies.

Professional organizations: Did you know there are professional organizations for procurement oﬃcials? Based on the content on some of their sites, they’re quite skeptical about using technology to improve procurement, let along innovating procurement to improve technology. Nonetheless, they will likely play an important role in disseminating meaningful procurement reform beyond major cities. The International City Managers Association launched an online marketplace this year, where vendors are rated based on cost and solution type.

The Choice of Business Success

ith an aim to better businesses through technologyenabled energy management solutions, Choice! Energy Services came into inception. The full-service energy procurement and utility management company with nationwide presence and a complete suite of energy management services, not only focuses on procurement; rather, it lays focus on optimum savings and value to its clients.

Choice boasts an a la carte program, which gives clients the opportunity to determine which services best fit their individualistic needs. The company continues to spread its tentacles by offering the following services: Strategic Power and Gas Procurement, Risk Management, Tariff Analysis, Budgeting, Utility Sales Tax Recovery, Utility Data Management, Engineering Consulting, Sustainability and Bill Pay. Additionally, Choice offers supporting services which include Demand Response, EnergyStar Certification, Arc Flash Study, LED Lighting, Regulatory Support and more. The company is transparent and unbiased in its consultations and recommendations, thereby allowing clients to make smarter, data-driven decisions about their energy consumption and spending.

Delivering better results Since its very inception, Choice has been striving to deliver better business results through incorporating technology as part of its solutions. Their journey has been a continuous learning experience as the needs of its vast customer base continue to change with time and market trends. The company has established a name in the procurement industry under the leadership of Kiki Dikmen, who became the Managing Partner at Choice! Energy Services back in 2007. Under his management, Choice has grown from a local broker shop in Texas to a national consulting firm with two additional offices in New York and Kentucky. His 12+ years of industry experience in energy services has helped Choice achieve aggressive growth and maturity. He has created new roles and responsibilities and has redefined the organization’s mission, vision and target audience. Currently, Choice is experiencing a classic industry maturity transformation. Back when deregulation was introduced as a new concept, customers were unaware they could “shop for energy.” This created a new layer of sometimes non-discerning intermediaries who created value simply by finding better prices than what the incumbent suppliers offered. As the market slightly matured, customers became

aware of their choices in “shopping” for energy, which also included shopping for their brokers and consultants thereby sharpening the initial role and relatively low value of the intermediary space. Fast-forward a few years, and the growing market and the ameliorating customer maturity is forcing all existing and aspiring players in the energy space to figure out where they can add lasting or unique value if they indeed want to stay in the business. Choice has always been on the forefront of the changes in retail consulting, and today the company delivers a consultative business model underpinned by proprietary technology and centered on creating long-term, ongoing and sustainable value. An unmatched industry position Choice leverages its access to wholesale markets through OTC Global Holdings, which is one of the largest liquidity providers to the NYMEX. OTCGH has one of the largest market shares of any firm. Through the common ownership, Choice offers valuable market knowledge about future prices for natural gas and wholesale power. Additionally, Choice leverages EOXLive, a leading voice and electronic trading platform for OTC commodity markets. The system records all real-time trade data passing through OTC Global

Kiki Dikmen Managing Partner Choice! Energy Services

Holdings, which gives Choice the knowledge to be strategic in procurement decisions, as well as to be transparent across the retail energy spectrum. Choice has also positioned itself to offer a comprehensive service through an award-winning active and intuitive proprietary online platform, CESConnect. The platform is offered in-house and allows large, multi-site organizations to find, track, manage and analyze utility data across regulated and deregulated regions nationwide, while assisting clients with sustainability and cost reduction initiatives. Choice recognizes that innovation and enhancements around CESConnect is the key for its organization’s growth. On a continuous surge to improve Speaking about the procurement industry, Kiki mentions “The retail commodity industry is no longer just about procurement but rather a comprehensive approach. Companies are on a continuous lookout for solution providers and partners that can come in and address all clients’ needs. This includes strategic procurement in deregulated areas, meter installs, forecasting, rate analysis, expansion projects, sustainability applications, utility data management solutions and much more.” Choice has positioned itself to offer a comprehensive service through its utility data management platform, CESConnect. Choice recognizes that innovation and enhancements around CESConnect is the key for its organization’s growth. With this in mind, Choice is on a continuous surge to improve its user

experience by strengthening its mobile presence. The company has also witnessed a tremendous value in consolidating utility-level, meterlevel and submeter-level data to create a single-access platform across currently fragmented, piece-meal solutions. Choice is active and licensed in all of North America’s deregulated natural gas and power markets. It aligns each client’s speciﬁc risk management objectives with strategically focused fundamental and technical market analytics. This provides clients with the requisite information and tools needed to make the most informed decisions about their future energy requirements. In addition to these, Choice leverages the common ownership of OTC Global Holdings to empower clients to be price setters by ensuring price transparency into each market. This unique advantage ensures that clients are aligned with the best retail supplier. A future ﬁlled with promises In order to drive customer satisfaction and the continuous adaptation to digital age, Choice is dedicated to continuously building its strategic energy team that supports the rapid national growth by investing in employee talent and technology. At a higher level, Choice is keeping a close eye on Mexico’s energy markets not only because they are the indirect drivers for energy markets in the U.S., but also for potential business opportunities and expansion. Additionally, Choice aspires to continue to work with multi-site organizations with international presence to expand its global footprint.

Also, digitalization of energy infrastructure supported by national government initiatives and swelling concern to reduce carbon footprint could also turn the spotlight on the energy management industry. Choice will remain at the forefront of new

and advanced technologies and projects commercial energy management software to achieve vital prominence in the industry. Choice continues to implement new strategies, products and services and corporate identity to better serve its clients. Choice is not only experiencing considerable growth and technological advances, but also a change to its competitive position. Rebranding makes this change visible for all employees, clients and stakeholders to keep us as leaders in the energy landscape.

George Deeb Managing Partner Red Rocket Ventures

The 10 Things You Need to Know When Responding to RFPs f you are in the B2B space, odds are you will need to respond to requests for proposals (RFPs) from prospective customers throughout your normal course of business. But the RFP process is typically ﬁlled with potential pitfalls along the way. Here’s how to identify, and more importantly, avoid them:

prospective customers in your space, and make sure you are on their radar; ask to be included in their RFP requests. Oftentimes, bigger companies will engage third-party RFP process-management companies to run the process for them. Uncover those third-party companies active in your industry, and make sure you get on their radar, as well.

1. Understand the process.

3. Prepare for last-minute requests, and tight deadlines.

RFPs basically lay out all the specific project needs and questions the customer has, in one document, which is sent to numerous competing bidders. From there, the customer typically narrows down the submissions to a handful of finalists. The finalists are then allowed to ask any questions they have, and the customer may also ask additional questions of the finalists, by way of comparing and contrasting the various proposals.

RFPs can often come in last minute, with tight deadlines for submission (e.g., two weeks). The more complex the project, the tougher it is to pull together a thoughtful response in such a short period of time. For this reason, you need to have a template RFP on the shelf. Then, when the RFP comes in, you have 80 percent of the standard materials all ready to go and can focus on the 20 percent that needs to be customized for that particular proposal. Prepare for RFP responses to be a big distraction while they are happening; the better prepared you are, the less of a distraction they will be.

A final proposal is then submitted by each finalist, and the customer selects the winning bidder to move forward with. This process can take weeks to months, depending on the project’s size and complexity. En route, enterprise customers may face a much more onerous process than do small-to-medium-size busineses, because the former have a procurement department involved (in addition to the businesspeople needing the solution). 2. Make sure you find out about RFPs in the first place.

4. Have ready a well-written, thoughtful response. A good response will typically have the following sections: (i) information about your company; (ii) what makes you better than competitors; (iii) your specific thoughts on the RFP project, and how you are uniquely qualified to succeed; (iv) answers to any of the customer’s specific questions; (v) your pricing section; and (vi) your "happy client" references.

You can’t close sales if you’re not aware of the RFPs in the ﬁrst place. So, you need to identify all

Your response should also be visually appealing, with graphic images carrying more weight than dense

paragraphs of copy. Most importantly, talk in the “customer’s voice” and intersperse that company’s logo and images throughout the presentation, so the customer knows you understand its business, and you look like you put customized work into your response, tailored just for your recipient.

aggregate pricing for the platform as a whole. You want to make it as hard as you can for the customer to “turn the screws” and truly understand your net margin on the project. Understand, your customers will do everything they can to try to break out the details. So, tread carefully and dig in where you need to.

5. Don’t disclose your “secret sauce.”

7. Don’t quote your lowest price.

At the same time you are trying to distinguish yourself from your competitors, be very careful not to give away your “secret sauce” in your response. There are high odds that the customer will spot your unique advantage in your response, and may ask the other bidders if they can provide the same thing. That does two things: (i) educates your competitors on what you do; and (ii) gives the competitor the chance to say, “Sure we can do that!" whether or not its people were actually planning to do that in their initial response.

I have previously written about the art of negotiation. The point is, you need to leave the customer room for a “win.” And that win typically means letting the procurement department look smart to its boss, by having its members negotiate further price savings from the original quote. So, let’s say you normally like to price your business with a 50 percent gross margin. Instead, put a quote into your RFP with 60 percent, knowing that procurement will be expecting at least a 10 percent haircut from there during the process.

6. Bundle price where you can.

8. Strategically leverage the Q&A process.

The more details you provide in your pricing proposal, the more speciﬁc the line items that the customer can try to negotiate down. So, as an example, if you are a platform technology vendor, don’t detail pricing for all your various features and functionality in isolation, line by line. Instead,

There are two parts to consider when asking and answering questions during the Q&A process: (i) protect yourself, and (ii) make life miserable for your competitors. As for the former, all questions asked and answers answered will normally be shared with all the competing bidders. So, be careful

not to ask any question where the questions themselves, or the answers therefrom, will educate your competitor on how exactly you do your work -- an advantage you want to keep secret. And, on the flip side, if you know you are materially better than your competitors in certain areas the customer desires, answer questions with answers you know will far outshine those of your competitors. This is really a fine line to walk: You want to show off your strengths, but not all your strengths, which will give your competitors intelligence. 9. Beware the procurement department. There are typically two departments involved in the purchase decision: (i) the businesspeople needing the solution; and (ii) the procurement department negotiating the contract. Procurement’s job is to save the company money, and oftentimes, its staffers’ personal bonuses are tied to the quantity of those savings. This means that, even if you are the 100 percent ideal solution for the businesspeople, the procurement department’s peoplemay start “lobbying and biasing” a different solution, if it makes them look smarter to their bosses. Typically, the businesspeople win

out on small price differences, but the procurement department gains a lot more leverage the higher your prices are versus others’, even if the businesspeople selected you. So, make sure you make friends with the procurement team at the same time you are working the business team; and keep a close eye on your competitors’ pricing. 10. Leverage back channels. During the RFP process, you are typically disqualified if you reach out to the customer, trying to push or promote yourself. The customer’s people don’t want to be distracted by numerous bidders while they are trying to do their work. But, you need intelligence during the process, so you can act on that information before it is too late. Make sure you have “friendly” people in your back pocket who are aware of the process and the discussions thereto, but are not directly involved in the process. For example, let’s say you are pitching a social media technology solution to a brand. Maybe you are friendly with someone at the target company’s social media agency or on its digital marketing team, and that someone is a colleague of the decision-makers and can sniff around for “inside information” on your behalf.

whom you are sure your intelligence gathering will not make its way back to the customer and disqualify you.

Just be careful: These have to be very close friends of yours, with

Bet you never realized how many moving pieces are wrapped up in a

successful RFP response, right? Hopefully, you are now better educated on the process, to help you win the next one.

Delivering Value with Innovative Procurement Solutions

negotiation module to address challenges of large-scale Source-2-Order process. Integrate ProcureSENS with existing ERP to seamlessly execute your sourcing cycle. ProcureSENS replaces your current piecemeal processes with a seamless framework that optimizes the way you engage with suppliers and run competitive sourcing events of all types. Traditional sourcing technology solutions face adoption challenges and which hence limits the value of realization. ProcureSENS not only overcomes this challenge, it also accelerates value realization using the unique Smart-FIT implementation approach of Safal.

ounded in 2012 by a group of experienced procurement technology professionals, Safal Softcom is 100% dedicated at positioning procurement at the heart of its business performance. The company delivers value to its clients with its procurement solutions. Its solutions are built-in by CONSULTING every stakeholder, made to SMART-FIT unique requirements of every individual, and echoes SIMPLICITY. Safal’s solution suites innovatively encompasses procurement processes like Requisition, RFx, Auction, Contract Management, Invoice Management, Vendor Management and Spend Management. Delivering Quality through its Solutions Safal E-Procurement Solutions suite is designed for companies to manage complex and large-scale procurement activities. SAFAL E-Procurement solution suite provides a feature-rich technology that fully integrates with any ERP system. “Our spirit of innovation and passion to help procurement delivers greater business impact,” mentions Mohammed Ali Holda, the Chief Sales Oﬃcer of Safal Softcom. Following are the two pioneering solutions of Safal: ·

ProcureSENS is a next generation e-Sourcing solution with built-in contract

ProcureSTEPS is an innovative procure to pay solution with built-in PO to Invoice exception management framework that addresses the complex order fulﬁllment and payment challenges of a large-scale Order-2-Pay process. ProcureSTEPS integrates with any ERP, creating an ecosystem that seamlessly connects all your internal stakeholders with suppliers. ProcureSTEPS uniquely addresses the purchase order reconciliation challenges with

suppliers by the time the order is fulﬁlled. This helps improve PO 2-way & 3-way match rate drastically and consistently. Reduces manual intervention and streamlines the P2P by process by digitally connecting Purchase Orders, Purchase Order Acknowledgements, Advance Shipment Notices, GRN & Invoices. SAFAL E-Procurement solution suite helps streamline processes with 100% insights, enabling better compliance and transparency. It also enhances procurement negotiations, provides collaboration with 360-degree communication framework and helps solve complex payment related issues. Transform complex procurement challenges into a smarter way of delivering results. Mohammed Ali Holda - Driven with a Passion to Excel Mohammed Ali Holda is a technology pioneer in the area of spend management & Procurement performance solutions, with an executive leadership role as the Chief Sales Oﬃcer of Safal Softcom. His result-oriented and award-winning marketing expertise include a long track record of leading highperformance teams, successfully increasing market share and leveraging partnership programs. He is known for his ability to nurture and grow a

Dharmendra Darji Chief Executive Oﬃcer Safal Softcom

Mohammed Ali Holda Chief Sales Oﬃcer Safal Softcom

business, evaluate opportunities, and deliver innovative new solutions to the marketing team. He is driving the globally end-to-end ProcureSens & ProcureSteps solutions marketing strategies. He has developed a reputation for creating and implementing revenue-generating strategies by incorporating comprehensive and innovative programs. Behind Safal, a passionate team with procurement background is constantly working to craft quality procurement solutions that help organizations to reduce procurement spend and improves procurement eﬃciency. Mohammed spearheads a team of professionals at Safal to bring-forward unmatched success and innovation.

with operation center in India and multiple sales and consulting offices in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Just like any other new company; Safal’s first big challenge was finding its first multi-national customer. “When we won Doosan Power, one of the leading EPC Company from South Korea, we know we were doing the things the right way and then followed by having on board the biggest contracting company from Saudi Arabia. Since then, we have continued the path of innovation to provide sophisticated end-to-end procurement solutions suites with one focus – our customer’s happiness,” Mohammed exclaims. The company stands out and edges past its competitors in the following ways: ·

Edging Past the Competitors · Safal started its journey back in 2012

ERP Smart-Connect to help gradual ramp up. AVOID BIG BANG. Smart-Fit solutions to capture customer’s unique business

· · ·

needs. Simplicity – Easy to use solutions without compromising business needs. Boosts savings along with improvement in productivity. Increase in bandwidth to evaluate more suppliers. Unique centralized Purchase order exception management framework. Option to choose Cloud or On-Premises (BTF). Structured and Auditable communication framework. Reduction in unwanted communication by prompt stakeholders. Ensures accurate and on time payment backed by real-time information trail.

The Industry, Future and Beyond! Due to the global downturn and

economic slowdown, organizations and multi-nationals have begun to focus on the latest procurement technologies to reduce purchasing and production costs. The growth in eProcurement technology is opening up the market to businesses of all sizes. This makes it essential that any organization that isn’t already looking at eProcurement should be very soon. Most of Safal’s competitors in the market are currently offering a single solution to all the industry verticals, irrespective of the size of companies. The biggest achievement of Safal is coming up with industry-specific solutions for EPC, Contracting, MEP, Manufacturing, Engineering, FMCG, Healthcare, etc. The company offers an Elite version for mid-sized companies and an Enterprise version for big industries. “We want our customers to STOP wearing someone else’s hat in the name of standard practice! YES, every customer has a few crucial unique practices. Going away or changing them may pose a big change management threat to adoption and hence goal realization. We approach Smart-FIT solution for every client combining best practices & client’s unique needs!” mentions an assertive Mohammed. In the near future, Safal is slated to come up with more advanced solutions as well as procurement consulting services. The company has plans to expand its operations globally. Safal has already started its operation in Croatia and Australia and would soon open its new operation centers across Eastern European countries and in North & South America. “We want to partner with every procurement professional across the globe with innovative technology to realize their potential for contributing profitability to organizations,” concludes Mohammed.

Redeﬁning City Procurement

rocurement is the process with which every city buys goods and services which it cannot procure internally. Every city wants to improve the quality of life in a cost-eﬀective and risk-controlled way. However, by the time procurements reach a ﬁnal RFP/RFI/RFQ, the process often excludes a majority of the best solutions that might help a city achieve its goals. Enters Citymart, the company believes every procurement can be turned into an opportunity: to innovate, to save money, and to improve life for the city workers and residents. With the mission of helping cities unlock these opportunities through technology, wherever they are in the procurement process, Citymart

has become the most trusted name in city procurement innovation. Simpler and more Elegant According to Citymart, 99% of the businesses are not registered to do business with government. And government has too little market intelligence to develop excellent RFPs. With Citymart BidSpark, procurements are simpler, more elegant and speaks a clear language to the market. The company aggregates data on tens of thousands of solutions for cities, by which they can get better services. “We put this data at the ﬁngertips of buyers, to see for example the diﬀerent ways you can make a street crossing safer. For vendors, we remove all the initial barriers to do business with government.

Citymart BidSpark will alert vendors when tangible business opportunities arise - even if you have never registered to do business with government before. Vendors get this for free, and they love this - 90% of vendors who have never bid for a government contract say they will do it again,” asserts Sascha Haselmayer, the founder and CEO of Citymart. Every Procurement is an Opportunity. A feather in Citymart’s cap is that it was the ﬁrst company in government procurement to not just look at how it can digitize the existing processes but use technology to actually deliver better outcomes. For example, the entire system relied on industry

Sascha Haselmayer Founder & CEO Citymart

codes, most of them antiquated. Buyers and sellers were frustrated. Therefore, Citymart built technology that understands the intent of a procurement to inspire buyers about innovations and new ways to get the job done. As a result, new opportunities arise often for small businesses, start-ups and other innovators that have created smart new solutions. However, the company has had its share of struggle since its foundation. Like other innovators, when Citymart was started, everyone said “Don’t do it.” It faced strong pre-conceptions that nothing could be changed; that procurement is broken and corrupt. But the company rose above its challenges to become what it is today. “We are proud to have proven that procurement can be delightful, can be an engine to innovation and that citizens, startups and social enterprises have delivered lasting change in communities by delivering better outcomes. And importantly, we have been able to democratize this successful approach through technology - today, a Citymart procurement takes as little as a single click costs 99% less than just 2 years ago,” Sascha adds. A Truly Dedicated Professional Sascha has dedicated all his professional life to cities and communities. He was born in Germany, trained as an architect in London and his pursuit of

improving procurement has brought him to work at over 150 cities across 35 countries to find sustainable and future proof solutions to urban needs. As a result, Sascha always looked at procurement with the eyes of a citizen: “We should buy the best possible solution we can afford, that can be deployed to quick effect.” He wakes up every morning to make that happen, to engineer the system by which this change can come about.

communities through procurement, and therefore have a clear compass to guide their decisions. One example is that most procurement platforms generate revenue from vendors - which in the public sector increases the bias to the 1% of business that knows how to work with the government. For Citymart, good public procurement looks more like recruitment - so they have the buyer pay for them to bring the best talent to the table by removing barriers to participation.

Talking about the vision, Sascha mentions, “We started Citymart because we noticed how far municipal public procurement was away from delivering great results. The best vendors didn’t participate, innovations didn’t spread and our communities paid too high a price for subpar outcomes. But, this is a market worth 10% of GDP, so it should generate excitement! Our answer to this was to create a new type of marketplace for cities Citymart!”

Citymart is excited about Citymart BidSpark as it is so easy to use and delivers consistently better outcomes for buyers and becomes smarter with each transaction. Moreover, Citymart’s investment in technology allows the company to now target all 20 million municipal procurements a year, a hugely exciting market that can create new business for millions of businesses.

Sharing the same Vision and Working towards Achieving it The success of Citymart is measured as much by its social impact as by its bottom-line. The Citymart team has spent years bringing on board world-class impact investors like Luminate, Social Capital, and Urban.US. It is important for every investor down to every employee to share a similar mission to improve the

Simplifying Hospital Procurement

eginning his career as a medical device sales representative, Austin Dirks observed how physicians had the power to choose their preferred products.

“It would only take a few weeks from introducing the product to the physician before it was used in surgical cases. Consequently, inventory surplus and cost containment became issues, and from those issues arose a new model of controlled purchasing known as Hospital Value Analysis Committees. Hospital VACs are used to analyze new product introduction within hospitals to ensure proper cost-beneﬁt of the technology. Inadvertently, VAC evaluation could add 6-12 months to an already long process,” recalls Austin. The Value Analysis Committees were becoming the decision makers, and Austin noticed the ﬁnancial impact of this change. For every nine-months, there was an average $8.6 million cost to medical device manufacturers due to the time delay, raising the cost of medical technology for all parties involved. To align all key

stakeholders, such as clinicians, purchasers, physicians, and medical representatives, in an eﬀort to streamline the new product evaluation process, Austin created GreenLight Medical. Faster decisions, eﬀective results GreenLight Medical is a hospital supply chain optimization software used for the procurement of new medical technology. The cloud software connects hospital facilities with medical suppliers to help standardize the introduction, evaluation, decision-support, and comprehensive product knowledge of new medical technology to ensure hospitals are making responsible purchasing decisions that are aligned with the physicians’ needs. With GreenLight’s cloud-based SaaS platform, data collection is more standardized and centralized in one dashboard, and proper people are more connected than ever before. GreenLight’s hospital customers are seeing a massive reduction in their procurement cycles; with decisions being made in less than 30 days and hospitals avoiding costs of greater than $1.5M per facility through the use of GreenLight.

Moving past the challenges Initially, gaining a ﬁrst adopter in the hospital market was an uphill battle for the company. At its onset, GreenLight faced challenges of operating as a small company in a highly regulated market with traditionally long sales cycles. GreenLight was eventually able to land a hospital customer a few months after its product release which provided enough traction to continue its footing in the market. Today, challenges continue to evolve as the industry shifts to Hospital Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) for purchasing. The combination of diﬀerent large players including medical device manufacturers, Group Purchasing Organizations, alongside large Hospital IDNs represent a unique challenge to make a name for yourself in an enterprise led landscape. However, GreenLight continues to evolve by solving customer requirements in a nimble manner, optimizing hospital supply chain process and data aggregation needs for new medical product introduction. Most comprehensive new product evaluation software There are software products for

Austin Dirks Founder & CEO GreenLight Medical

hospitals that do a little bit of everything and as a result become scattered in their offering. GreenLight has maintained an intense focus on its core offering, introducing and evaluating new medical technology for hospitals. As a result of that focus, GreenLight has become the most comprehensive new product evaluation software that there is, helping hospitals evaluate the product’s regulatory, reimbursement, clinical, financial, and contracting details. Now that the company has established a strong market presence, it is continuing to expand its software footprint, introducing safety and utilization of medical products as standard for customers. As a company, GreenLight works with both hospitals and medical device suppliers. Speaking about this unique factor, Austin asserts “We maintain a win-win offering that is unmatched in the industry. We help hospitals evaluate medical products, while we help suppliers coordinate the introduction of that technology. The portal becomes beneficial for both the buy and supply sides of medical technology as a result.” Dedicated towards success It was the combination of an engineering background and innate leadership qualities that allowed Austin to effectively build a business that strives to make hospital procurement more

efficient. Austin was a former cardiac medical device sales rep, selling pacemakers, and implantable defibrillators within hospitals. It was during this career path that Austin was able to witness first-hand the inner workings of the hospital procurement process. After completing an MBA at Harvard Business School, Austin started GreenLight Medical in an effort to redefine the way that new medical technology entered a hospital facility. Four years later, GreenLight has made its mark in the industry as a leader in the hospital supply chain procurement of medical technology. Austin’s perseverance shines as he works tirelessly toward his goals. He is able to focus on achieving successful changes in the healthcare industry, while fostering an engaged and fulfilled workforce. When changes arise, he approaches them head on, with an analytical mindset, and moves forward toward a solution, no matter what. Standing out as a pioneer in the industry Austin mentions “The future of healthcare supply chain will involve more consolidation and more centralized efforts. The continued rise of large Hospital IDNs strengthens the need for GreenLight even further given a need to effectively manage new product introduction within these massive and geographically disperse networks. Medical

products will continue to become more sophisticated with evaluation tools like GreenLight needed to quickly understand technology evolution as virtual reality, AI, and blockchain technologies are introduced into hospitals. In the future, GreenLight may even be looked at to integrate into current ERP and EHR systems. As a hospital system’s single point of entry, the future opportunity is bright for GreenLight.”

A look into the future “We aim to be the industry standard for hospital procurement. Our continued perspective is to sit as a direct information and communication conduit between hospital systems, manufacturers, and GPOs to get new technology into the physicians’ hands faster. Our digital interface will power the hospital procurement world. Medical manufacturers will be able to talk directly to physicians for their clinical feedback on products. Hospital IDNs will be able to talk directly to manufacturers about their product pipeline, breaking down barriers with digital connectivity. And ultimately, physicians will be able to provide better outcomes for patients while improving the hospitals’ ﬁnancial health,” Austin exclaims passionately. He continues saying, “As we grow in our footprint, we will be able to manage all types of technology introduction from capital equipment to high tech medical devices, solving a great collaboration need, using GreenLight to advance new technology through hospital procurement.”

A Pro in the Procurement Space

n 1998 France hosted the FIFA World Cup, a tournament of 64 matches played over 33 days in 10 stadiums across the country. In the months leading up to the final match, close to $1.5 billion officially branded merchandise and souvenirs were manufactured, distributed, and sold to fans not just in France but all around the world. Working behind the scenes to manage this entire merchandising program for FIFA was a small division of the Sony Corporation. Andrew Rich was Sony’s vice president responsible for its European merchandising programs. “Sony was not an official sponsor of the tournament, but four years earlier, in 1994, we had been invited by FIFA to make a proposal for the global merchandising program for “France ‘98”, says Rich. Sony Entertainment’s inhouse intellectual property licensing group already managed global brand owners that were distributed by Sony Pictures, Sony Playstation, and Sony Music (think for example of Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson). “Our global brand management expertise won the bid, and for the next five years my group managed

the licensing of all FIFA World Cup merchandise”. Included in this huge project was the oversight of the promotional products created by the oﬃcial sponsors of the World Cup, including Coca Cola, adidas, Gillette, and many others.

/ POS materials, consumer promotional items, and print. It remains one of only a few such companies dedicated to helping global brand manufacturers manage the purchasing of their physical marketing materials.

At the end of the tournament, Sony decided not to manage any other “outside” brands, but a few of the executives who had headed up the World Cup merchandising program saw the continuing need for global brand companies like FIFA’s sponsors to manage their marketing materials. They left Sony in 1999 and started a new company in the tumultuous tech environment of San Francisco at the turn of the millennium. The new company’s mission was to bring professional expertise to the procurement of promotional materials. ProMost launched in early 2000 with custom designed, state-of-the-art electronic procurement software, and a team of global brand merchandising experts.

“There are a few particular pain points that almost every brand manufacturer suffers with respect to their marketing materials,” says Rich. “Primarily they revolve around problems that the central brand team has in overseeing the quality and consistency of the materials sourced by each of the end markets. There is often little or no control over which suppliers are used, how much is paid, and how the branding is applied.” The ProMost offering solves those pain points and more by making approved branding and suppliers visible to all buyers, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing, and promoting centrally designed products on a fast, efficient electronic platform.

First and Best

An 18-year-old Start Up

ProMost was the ﬁrst company created and focused speciﬁcally on the management of branded marketing materials, including POP

After 18 years in the business, having managed global programs for Unilever, Seagrams, BAT, Coty, and Procter & Gamble, among

Andrew Rich Partner & MD Promost

others, ProMost still strives to continuously upgrade its technology and services. “For better or worse we have stayed a small, specialized company” Rich explains. “This enables us to react quickly and precisely to our clients’ needs. Imaging asking SAP to rewrite some of their code to better facilitate an upcoming promotion!” The newest version of ProMost’s eprocrement software, designed just a few years ago and updated regularly, takes advantage of the cloud-based SaaS tools to allow maximum flexibility. “We can literally customize the platform for each client, to mirror and automate their existing work processes and communication flows. Adoption and training is thus a matter of hours, not weeks” according to Rich, “and the result is the client sees savings almost immediately. The cost to implement ProMost is usually recouped within a few months.” According to Rich, each client uses the platform and ProMost’s expertise in different ways. One client uses it specifically to forecast demand for new materials. New promotion designs and potential materials are posted almost weekly, and end markets are asked to project their needs for each item. Designs that don’t get enough interest never even go to prototyping, much less to production, saving the client a small fortune in an unwanted inventory.

“We focus on each new client’s most important needs, and design their workflow on the platform accordingly. You don’t need multilevel approval routing? No problem, we strip that off your buyers’ interface. You need proprietary internal information included with orders? No problem, we add that tool to your private ProMost site,” Rich explains. The software is so granular that the ordering experience can be customized right down to the individual buyer, who can be directed to specific approved items from local suppliers. “No other marketing procurement service can offer the same powerful tools together with client customization and ease of use.” The Future for e-procurement When asked where he thinks the procurement industry is heading, Rich suggested “towards an “app” type environment, offering more flexibility and more control. That sounds like a contradiction but I don’t think it is” he says. “Companies understand that end markets have the local expertise and are the foot soldiers who implement on global marketing programs. At the same time, the central brand teams need to set the agenda, the timing, and the parameters to insure a consistent and successful campaign. They study historical data, vet suppliers, and are ultimately responsible for the success of their brands. Custom

software like ProMost that allows central oversight and local autonomy, which is easy to use and customized to the user, will continue to thrive,” Rich believes. “Big enterprise software will run in the background like “operating systems”, and more specialized

platforms like ProMost will run like “apps” to provide critical and useful additional services that the enterprise systems can’t oﬀer.” Procter and Gamble has been a key ProMost client for over 15 years. Having worked in long term relationships with the largest and best brand manufacturers, ProMost has proved itself over and over to be of signiﬁcant value to companies seeking to control and optimize their regional and global marketing procurement.

Thinking Diﬀerent to Make a Diﬀerence

or most rapidly ameliorating organizations, manual procurement processes are not viable any more to meet the evolving needs of their growing staﬀ members and supplier base. And when both size and complexity tends to reach a tipping point it springs forward a change. This involves the automation of some or all of the internal processes.

With a vision of automating your procure to pay processes and turning complex into simple and simple into something awesome, Innovation Centric Group (ICG) was incepted. The company’s motto of daring to be diﬀerent has led it towards success and meet the evolving needs and requirements of its clients. Herein, we look at the journey, the story, and innovation that ICG stirs through its products and solutions. Thinking Diﬀerent; Thinking Out of the Box It was during the time when Lory Troche, the CEO of ICG, worked as

a consultant for a medium-sized oil and gas company in Alberta that the story started. The company found themselves in the need of speciﬁc systems to provide a level of automation that was not found readily available in the market. ICG decided at this point to develop these systems for their clients to close this market gap.

the data, automating all the processes, and integrating the disparate data sources of the P2P process. The company avoids expensive duplications of invoices and late payments and identiﬁes opportunities for cost-cutting.

The company believes in coming out with something awesome. However, awesome requires diﬀerent thinking and thinking out of the box is a specialty that ICG is synonymous with.

ICG provides Procure to Pay outsourcing solutions. It helps organizations grow their businesses on demand by simplifying their entire P2P process. It specializes in complex P2P processes i.e. Oil and Gas explicit/non-explicit, HSE compliance, etc. ICG ensures its clients satisfaction by providing outstanding personalized service and helping business to scale on demand.

According to the company, we do not go where the path may lead, we go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. The culture of the company is diﬀerent as it cares. At the same time, the company accepts that its life is complicated. “We are bombarded with data, reports, information, deadlines and agendas from diﬀerent groups. We make the complicated simple, we make the hidden, transparent, the manual, automated,” mentions Lory. ICG saves both time and money of the enterprises by digitalizing all

Ensuring Optimal Client Satisfaction

ICG handles all aspects of the implementation process from change management to integration support. “The ball is always on our court. We are not an ERP, we simply help companies maximize the ROI of their existing systems from SAP to Quickbooks,” exclaims Lory

Lory Troche CEO ICG

An Incredible Platform by all Means ICG works with an amazing team of professionals and together they have built an incredible Procure to Pay SaaS platform that helps companies break down the silos between their existing systems. When speaking about her team, Lory mentions “Our team is our family. We help each other grow personally and professionally whatever everyone’s goals are. We oﬀer innovative learning experiences and we foster a learning culture.” ICG makes systems talk to each other for a fully-automated experience that allows companies to have real-time information that can easily display in personalized and interactive dashboards. Through this, everyone within the company has the requisite information that they need to work more eﬃciently without spending time in non-value-added tasks. ICG’s biggest achievement was having its products and services market ready for industries other than Oil and Gas. However, the biggest challenge for the company is breaking through the ’bigger is better’ myth in most industries. “In our case, being small is an advantage that allows us to innovate and move faster than big technology companies,” she adds. At present, the company is working on several strategic partnerships

and has recently joined SAP as one of its partners (only ones in the world in the P2P ﬁeld), KPMG (implementer), Fujitsu (Implementer) and Accenture (Implementer). Spearheaded by Lory, the team at ICG has been working relentlessly to take the company to the next level.

Turning Experience into Success Lory Troche brings to ICG system both knowledge and innovation mixed with years of expertise across diﬀerent industries. She has spent 4 years as the Director of Procure-to-Pay at a communications company. Therein she was the director of operations, purchasing and payables manager,

supplier relationship manager, Six Sigma Black Belt Cost Reduction Lead and reduced company bottom line cost by 31%. She managed contract negotiation, business intelligence, business process automation, and strategic sourcing. Add to that, she has spent 4 more years as the Sr. Management Consultant â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Project Manager for a Canadian gasoline, oil, and natural

gas producing and exporting company. She managed the following: business process automation, business process reengineering (Six Sigma), systems integration, software development, change management, strategic sourcing and procure to pay automation, and data warehouse implementation project.

Centralized Procurement will Drive the Future of B2B Procurement Industry

Karthik Ramaiah Co-founder Kobster

rocurement as an industry has evolved a lot from the time of its inception. Businesses are rapidly re-evaluating their procurement operating models and market strategies not just to withstand the market forces, but capitalize on them. In the corporate procurement, this calls for great responsibility requires the procurement executive to be visionary and innovative while being exceedingly committed to fulﬁlling the requirements.

Change that is much needed: Businesses across the globe are looking for consumerlike experience in procurement. Over the last few years, many initiatives across the globe have successfully consumerized B2B e-commerce and eprocurement. The major reasons why businesses are switching from traditional commerce to e-commerce include several fundamental beneﬁts of e-commerce such as a self-serve model, better eﬃciency in making decisions, more transparent information, and better analytics and structured buying. This drives this to a change which is obvious and the need of the hour one.

Paradigm Shift: B2B e-commerce has been riding the wave of B2C ecommerce across the globe. However, within the next 3-5 years, B2B e-commerce will outgrow B2C ecommerce in terms of volume of sales (GMV). In other words, B2B procurement is expected to face a paradigm shift in anytime sooner. So far, B2B ecommerce has been following the trends of B2C ecommerce, however, the future will be diﬀerent as both will take their own paths.

How does the future of procurement look? The future of procurement is expected to be driven by an increasingly centre-led approach, characterized by constant connectivity to the sublets and enabled by technology.

The current system used for purchasing office supplies is a fillin-the-need system. Simply put, it can help to find the best supplier for a location. Though we have made incredible advances in procurement and technology, a centralized procurement process has remained much the same. Centralized Procurement then: In early 2014, centralized procurement was all about “control”, “power” and “authority”. And ultimately, if the organization is run in a reasonably decentralized manner, it was unlikely to accept a highly controlling centralized procurement function. The purchasing decision makers were at the company headquarters. But it was never designed to mislead you into a bureaucratic system. Centralized Procurement later: In the new paradigm, we will have to start looking at it from the perspective of “process

optimization”, “cost reduction” and “setting a direction”. An organization’s activities could be spread over a number of plants or locations. And for a large organization, it requires a massive amount of resources and tools in order to operate at peak levels. One of the primary reasons why companies have trouble managing their purchasing practices is because diﬀerent purchasing teams procure in diﬀerent locations and are “not tracked”. Future trends in the sector: Business buyers are consumers too, hence the fundamentals remain the same. However, unlike B2B ecommerce, where the buyers are more impulse driven and are often shopping for fun/leisure, business buyers are buying for their business and their purchase designs are needed driven.B2B e-commerce will not only out-grow B2C ecommerce in terms of volume of business but also the application of technology.

Another interesting trend will happen in B2B e-commerce is the success of niche players. Unlike B2C e-commerce where we have seen generalists have had an upper hand over specialists, in B2B ecommerce, specialists who would provide best solutions to the niche problems faced by businesses towards purchases will find more success than generalists. With companies switching to B2B e-commerce, more and more realtime procurement data will be captured. This data will help B2B e-commerce players to better understand the behaviour of the business buyer and offer datadriven insights. B2B e-commerce companies will use this data to provide a personalized experience to every buyer/business. In a nutshell… Over the years, procurement companies have started looking into how strategy with technology could address the dilemma in the process. Whereby how can procurement gain some of the undoubted benefits of aggregation and transparency. The centre-led approach in procurement will assure a hassle-free procurement experience which cut unnecessary and additional costs as well as creates a healthy platform for reliable and transparent procurement.

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