Ketera Crashes the E-Sourcing Party – Starting at $39.99 per Month
Outside of pricing, what is most interesting about the product is its close ties to the Ketera Supplier Network which allows users to access over 40,000 suppliers. Granted, this number is tiny relative to the number of suppliers you can find in supplier directories, but it's a start nonetheless. At this point in time, there are no market feedback mechanisms like MFG.com to have the community rank and rate suppliers, but I suspect Ketera will get there in future releases. From a UI standpoint, the application appears easy to use. I asked for a username and password and have yet to receive one, but I did look at a number of screen shots. What will surprise people is how straightforward the application is and the relative depth of such capabilities as bid graphs and bid analysis given the price points.
So what about that pricing, you ask? Ketera is offering a choice of three plans for their Sourcing product, all of which cost less than a typical consultant would charge for a day of work. In other words, I’m guessing that cost will be a non-issue for companies that make the decision to give the product a shot. The basic plan which costs $39.99 per month for 12 months provides unlimited RFX capability and 6 reverse auctions per year. The advanced plan includes unlimited RFX capability and 12 reverse auctions per year and will set you back $59.99 per month. Or why not go for the professional plan for $99.99 per month and gain access to unlimited RFX capability and 24 reverse auctions in a year.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I've not had a chance to play around with the tool yet. I will in the coming weeks when I'm back from vacation. I'll withhold judgment until then to see how the application stacks up to others, but given the low price-points, it's hard to imagine how companies which have yet to run reverse auctions or bring an RFX process online can go wrong by trying out Ketera's offering. What about others already using another sourcing platform or tool? I'd wait to see what Spend Matters, AMR and others have to say about it after we've reviewed the product.
The dirty little secret with complex RFX/auction is that the devil is in the details and in the last 20% of the features -- AND you need professional services assistance to do it right. That's why the tool can be inexpensive or free, because there's plenty of money to be made on the services.
As to the point that we may be hiding something or charging for services later on – the solution does not require any implementation services. We leave it to our partners such as The Claro Group and others to provide consulting services around sourcing if our customers are interested.
Sourcing technology solutions have been expensive for a while now, Ketera is the first to take a step towards making sourcing affordable and easy to use.
This offer targets 80% of the market - reverse auction and eRFx capabilities that are most commonly used. The true benefits of sourcing accrue when a customer has access to a network of suppliers from within the solution – think of network effect from a community of buyers and suppliers – access to new suppliers, access to suppliers who are already transacting (screened by other buyers )etc
Once again before you imply that this offer is a way to gather revenue on services – I recommend you to try it.
Wanted to know if you got the time after your vacation to evaluate the product offering from Ketera. Was thinking of evaluating myself too. Your suggestions would surely help me in firming up my decision too.
Regards,
Upendra
Its clear that someone from Sourceone inc posted the first comment. You should remove "nobody" from your registration.
Dave
Sorry, but no one from Source One posted that comment.
We welcome the innovative approach to low cost tools into the marketplace. And in fact, we do not even compete against Ketera, we are in different market spaces, selling entirely different solutions.
It is true though that a tool is not a substitute for good practices, methods, and negotiation skills, therefore there is plenty of room to sell consulting services. Anything that increases awareness in the procurement space is fine by us.
There's some commonality at the base-level, but they are definitely not meant to be "competing solutions".
And I have to agree with Mr. Dorn, whom the maniacs called a "Proper Gentlemen", that no one at Source One would dish on Ketera ... it's not their style. Moreover, anyone who followed the space closely could easy make the same comment ... cost-wise, it's not that big a deal when a number of vendors are offering low-cost solutions these days. The real questions are how does it stand up from a self-service perspective, how aggressive is Ketera developing and enhancing it, and how well does it serve the target market. (Which are questions the maniacs tried to answer.)