General News Content

Fulcrum, a platform for bringing together large enterprises and on-demand talent, told Spend Matters that it had raised a $1 million seed round led by Greatscale Ventures. And Topcoder, a Wipro company that’s described as the “world’s largest technology network and on-demand digital talent platform,” announced the launch of a new offering, “Talent-as-a-Service” (TaaS). Also, Jeff Bezos talks about Amazon in India. Afternoon Coffee brings you the latest news in procurement and supply chain technology.

SAP Ariba and Givewith today announced a partnership where Givewith’s social impact solution will be available on the SAP App Center, giving SAP clients access to a matching service that allows them to find nonprofits to give donations.

Businesses increasingly are concerned with sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and Givewith analyzes thousands of nonprofits to match with businesses’ needs to improve their social standing, which studies have shown helps the bottom line as well as aids reputations with the public and improves worker recruiting and retention.

“If just 8% of the nearly $3 trillion transacted by buyers and suppliers across the Ariba Network included Givewith, we would generate over $3 billion in funding for nonprofits,” said Paul Polizzotto, Givewith’s founder and CEO, in a press release. “As we look to tackle some of today’s most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges, we see SAP Ariba as a strong partner in unleashing the power of business transactions as an agent for social change. Together, we’re elevating the role of procurement by turning sourcing into a key component of the company’s larger business and CSR strategies.”

In a Spend Matters PRO Vendor Introduction post, our analyst Nick Heinzmann shares what he learned after spending time evaluating Givewith’s solution, Givewith Enterprise.

Amazon has revealed it was contesting the decision by the Pentagon to give to Microsoft the $10 billion cloud computing deal. A new California law — covered extensively by Spend Matters here — “turned thousands of independent contractors into employees, including truckers, janitors, and gig workers, according to a University of California Berkeley analysis,” Bloomberg Law reports. And global automakers await a decision from President Donald Trump on whether he will impose up to 25 percent tariffs on U.S. car and auto part imports after a 180-day review period expired earlier this week. Afternoon Coffee: Happy Friday!

Corcentric — a source-to-pay provider targeting procurement and finance groups with various software, services and capital/payment offerings — has been on Spend Matters’ radar for years as the New Jersey-based company has acquired and created solutions for the procurement technology market.

Converged source-to-pay models similar to Corcentric’s are thriving.

"Like GEP, Corcentric proves that you don't need to be a pure-play cloud software provider alone to carve out a material chunk of the fast-growing procurement solutions market," said Jason Busch, managing director of Spend Matters Nexus, which advises sponsors, boards and CEOs on M&A in the procurement sector. “Corcentric is a successful amalgam of procurement services, payment/financing, group purchasing solutions and source-to-pay technology. While the capital markets were previously confused by everything it did — including leasing — the value proposition for customers today is much clearer."

McDonald’s has announced that 100 percent of its coffee for American restaurants was now being sustainably sourced, according to Supply Chain Digital. U.S. hospitals can save about $25.7 billion annually in unnecessary U.S. hospital spending on supply chain products and related operations and procedures, according to a press release. And a study shows the seafood industry could develop best practices for shipping live oysters via airlines. Afternoon Coffee: your source for procurement and supply chain news.

The pharmaceutical and life science industries may have not felt the impact of the on-going trade war between the U.S. and China but with no signs of any compromise, these sectors, too, are preparing for a major supply-chain disruption, according to Supply Chain Brain. The executive director of the Port of Los Angeles has told Reuters that unlike the last time tariffs came down, this time around importers seemed unwilling to stockpile goods ahead of the U.S. administration's plan to slap 15% tariffs on phones, toys, and other consumer goods. And the case for building multi-vendor sourcing into organizations’ supply chains. Afternoon Coffee: your source for procurement and supply chain news.

Tomorrow, experts from Deloitte and Spend Matters will come together on a free webcast to shed more light on the 2019 CPO Survey findings, and to give attendees a roadmap for how to become a "procurement master." WhiteHawk Limited today announced the extension and expansion of a contract to provide its Cyber Risk Radar to a well-known U.S. company for supply chain risk management. And agri-tech solutions provider HerdX and UPS have linked up for a global logistics partnership for a blockchain-verified beef shipment from a U.S. farm to Japan. Afternoon Coffee: your source for procurement and supply chain news.

Last week, in its first official week as a standalone subscription offering, Spend Matters Nexus covered the Workday-Scout RFP acquisition in detail, with deep dives and competitive landscape views that are unparalleled in the research and intelligence market. (So thorough was the coverage blitz, that Nexus is taking the rest of this week 'off' and will resume the following week.) The U.S. will only make a trade deal with China if the deal was “right,” said U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday. And third-party logistics providers are struggling to keep up with the need for qualified workers. Afternoon Coffee: your source for procurement and supply chain news.

Globality, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that facilitates the efficient and effective buying and selling of enterprise services, hired a new chief revenue officer this fall, and we caught up with Keith Hausmann about his role as the new leader of business development and sales for the rapidly growing company.

Hausmann started as the CRO in September after years at Accenture, where he led supply chain and procurement business process optimization and built a technology ecosystem network.

In his new role at Globality, his focus is on leveraging AI to help clients with the sourcing of high-value B2B services, including marketing, consulting, technology, legal and more, to create a new ecosystem for global trade.

"This is what I'd been looking for,” Hausmann said of Globality’s mission.

Noted technology analyst Magnus Bergfors joins Spend Matters today after several years at Gartner, bringing a deep background in strategic sourcing, procure-to-pay and other procurement software categories.

"I'm thrilled that Magnus will be joining us,” said Jason Busch, the founder of Spend Matters, whose analysts provide solution intelligence on procurement technology. “Not only is he deeply in touch with the needs of procurement organizations, Magnus will bring a global perspective on technology analysis, selection and best-practices to our audience in North America, Europe and around the world."

Magnus lives in Sweden and will increase Spend Matters’ coverage of the industry in Europe.

“I’m incredibly excited to join the Spend Matters team,” he said. “The balance of Spend Matters being large enough to have a critical mass of resources and world-leading expertise combined with the agility of a smaller organization allows for some really exciting opportunities for innovative research and to help our clients make the right choices.”

Workday’s acquisition of Scout RFP not only sparked some of Spend Matters founder and Nexus managing director Jason Busch’s most inspired work from a strategic writing standpoint, it also gave birth to the first (mini)-Friday Rant within a Spend Matters Nexus article. The aircraft leasing subsidiary of General Electric, has ordered 25 Airbus aircraft. Peugeot maker PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler will retain all of their car brands if their planned $50 billion merger goes ahead. And a port in Oakland, California, reported a rise in exports last month. Afternoon Coffee: happy Friday, procurement and supply chain folks!

Today was supposed to end a relaxed week, with two days of PTO for a variety of family activities. Instead, the week went wild — when Workday caught everyone slightly off-guard Monday as it announced that it would acquire Scout RFP.

That news launched a flurry of activity here, because I love real-time coverage of procurement sector M&A.

And with the investment-focused Spend Matters Nexus officially launching the same day as that breaking news, the timing, except for my scuttled plans to relax a bit more than usual, could not have been more perfect. This week I also ended up having some meetings with clients. And the lessons from the Workday and Scout news have resonated in many of the meetings. (See our Nexus coverage from this week that led to the insights.)