Five of Spend Matters’ analysts shared insights on their top procurement technology selections for the 2021 “50 to Know,” “50 to Watch” and “Future 5” lists in a post-release webinar this week. The 2021 lists marked the eighth year for 50 to Know and 50 to Watch, as well as the third annual release of the Future 5, which features outstanding procurement technology start-ups.
The analysts kicked off with a high-level view of the procurement technology market and where they think it’s headed.
Nick Heinzmann, the analyst team lead, noted that “a lot of the trends are continuations or evolutions of themes we saw in 2020” at the onset of the pandemic.
These include risk and supply chain disruptions, ESG and sustainability rising to the top of procurement’s agenda, supplier collaboration as the next priority area for investment and others.
“Risk is something that is on the radar for all of us,” said Bertrand Maltaverne, Senior Analyst for Supplier Management & Sourcing. “The last two years have been quite something for all of us at a personal level, but even more for procurement professionals. … For next year in 2022, I think there are no signs that it will be very different.”
He also talked about raw material shortages and the effects on inflation and rising costs as we head toward the holiday season.
“If we look at the bright side, it’s also an opportunity for procurement organizations, teams and professionals to really shine and be recognized,” Maltaverne said. “What we observed more on the procurement technology side of things is that the market is very, very dynamic in terms of solutions and capabilities.”
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Going along with the topic of risk, Heinzmann also discussed the relationship between sustainability issues and risk management.
“When we look at risk management versus sustainability, starting in 2020 they were almost viewed as separate issues,” he said. When looking at the two search terms in Google Trends, at the end of 2020, “ESG shot up and started to overlap with risk management [as a relative search term] … it became a mainstay competitive interest for comparison with risk. It almost melded.”
Heinzmann also noted how both source-to-pay suite vendors and new niche players are making big moves in the area of ESG.
Chief Research Officer Pierre Mitchell also weighed in on the topic of supplier collaboration.
“One of the key learnings from the pandemic was that supplier collaboration was absolutely critical,” Mitchell said. “Hopefully, your relationships and your information-sharing were in good stead. Certainly looking forward, SRM is being broadly viewed as an absolutely critical way to drive value in 2022 both in terms of not just risk and compliance and sustainability, but good old-fashioned cost savings.”
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After discussing the procurement technology market, the analysts took a deep dive into what you need to know about many of the 105 providers on this year’s lists. The webinar was jam-packed with information for procurement technology professionals in all arenas of the field.
View the whole webinar recording here for a review of the companies, including:
For procurement vendor insights, access the webinar now.
