MineralTree, a provider of AP automation and payments solutions, secured a $50 million investment and acquired two payments companies. In other news, first-time unemployment claims rose last week, showing the ongoing problems from the coronavirus disruption. Also, Tesla announced its new concept of a cheaper, more powerful battery that will lead to a $25,000 electric car in three years. Afternoon Coffee brings you the latest in procurement and supply chain news.
This installment of our Spend Matters PRO Vendor Analysis explores Agiloft’s strengths and weaknesses, providing facts and expert analysis of its solution to help procurement organizations decide whether they should shortlist the vendor. It also offers a critique (pros/cons) of the user interface.
Most procurement organizations have only started to explore the full set of capabilities that integrated contract lifecycle management (CLM) capabilities can bring. Yet in most cases today — outside of procurement organizations deploying integrated suite-based contract management technologies, many of which offer limited capabilities relative to independent CLM vendors — CLM remains loosely coupled from overall procurement processes, including sourcing, supplier management, transactional buying, contract compliance and risk management.
Agiloft, one of dozens of independent CLM providers in the market today, offers a means of creating a synthetic process-driven and data-driven “hub” beyond providing core contract management capabilities alone. To do that, the vendor uses a unique term to describe its approach to putting contracts at the center of numerous business processes: contract and commerce lifecycle management (CCLM). And it’s not alone in its thinking. What Agiloft calls CCLM we at Spend Matters call commercial value management (CVM), a concept of contract management where granularly modelled contract obligations form the basis for managing enterprise-wide value creation via a centralized CLM system.
Admittedly, CCLM or CVM is at this time more conceptual than actionable strategy. But we feel that the most mature organizations are moving in this direction with their contract management practices, and, perhaps as a proof point, Agiloft’s most advanced competitors each have their own version of the CCLM/CVM vision that they are articulating with their own roadmaps.
Part 1 of our analysis provided a company background and detailed overview of the Agiloft solution, as well as a summary recommended fit suggestion for when organizations should consider Agiloft in the CLM area. Next up, this series will offer a look at Agiloft’s competitors, a company SWOT analysis, user selection guide, and more tech selection tips.
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