There are lots of technology providers serving as great proxies for general market growth. For a while, we used to consider Ariba the bellwether vendor in the P2P sector, but now we tend to see the ERPs and their solution partners as more generally indicative of adoption and general trends, owing to the growth and adoption of SAP SRM, among other tools. For sourcing, spend analysis, and the like, the growth of BravoSolution, Zycus, Iasta and others in the same categories make for a good general measure of market growth (as do Aravo, Hiperos, Achilles, CVM and others for supplier management tools and services).

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On occasion, news stories we cover hit close to home -- sometimes very close to home. As an example, consider the growing liquidity gap between large organizations, which can often borrow more inexpensively than ever at the moment, and smaller companies, which face more scrutiny (and higher rates) than anytime in recent memory, at least going back to the recession and credit crunch in 2008/2009. As a growing small business investing in expanded areas, we're in the process of evaluating our own cash flow needs for 2012 and realizing that having a backstop might be helpful. Yet in the US, establishing a line of credit or loan at favorable rates can take time. Perhaps we could take a lesson from the UK, which recently established a government-led (e.g., Bank of England) Business Lending Fund.

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Without stealing the thunder of some announcements we plan to make next year, 2012 will mark our first geographic expansion since 2010 (when we originally launched our UK/Europe venture which thus far, has ended up focusing almost entirely on British market). We're keen to bring Spend Matters to readers with both local language and flavor in markets that don't rely on English as a primary business language. Yet we haven't yet finalized our decisions and are in fact keen to gather input on this from the Spend Matters community. It's our hypothesis that the UK, Ireland and Nordics are fairly well taken care of with our English language site -- although more local color might be useful in the case of the latter countries -- so that leaves a few other regions you can probably zero in on that we're evaluating.

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As 2011 comes to an end, we've got more on our holiday plate than ever before at Spend Matters. To say it will be an interesting year ahead is a vast understatement. Starting in January and February, you'll be seeing some major changes at Spend Matters designed to take the business, site and research to a new level that we believe will be different than everything else out there -- and most of all, invaluable for readers and community members. Among the areas that will change in 2012, a number are natural enhancements and extensions of our business to date, but we're headed in some new directions as well.

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Spend Matters welcomes a guest point from Nick Drewe, Co-Founder of Market Dojo, a Bristol-based e-Sourcing solution start-up.

As a new entrant into the already crowded space of e-sourcing during a major economic downturn, it certainly makes for interesting times. After persevering though our first year, we can see many factors actually in our favour (and of course many against, but let's focus on the positives).

First, procurement continues to gain visibility within organisations, as we know that an efficient procurement strategy can mean the difference between profitability and receivership. Having been both an engineer and a buyer, it is pleasing to see these professions gaining more traction at a board room level, although still maybe not as much as we'd have liked.

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Even though Michael Lamoureux (Sourcing Innovation) and I love to quibble (and as some folks know, escalate our rhetoric from time to time) I have to lavish unrestricted praise on a new book he just co-authored: Spend Visibility: An Implementation Guide. Authored by Michael and Lexington Analytics' Bernard Gunther, the book, available for free via the previous link, provides the most comprehensive look at basic and advanced spend analysis applications and cubes I've seen anywhere. Yes, it's biased toward the application of certain types of tools that enable the simple creation of multiple cubes with highly diverse datasets. But in more advanced spend analysis scenarios, this certainly goes with the territory. And the book steers completely clear of mentioning specific technologies or vendors.

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Click here for the first, second, and third posts in this series. You can also read Part 4 - A by clicking here.

In the first part of this post, examining the procurement scenario that Technology Proves More Than Transformative, we explored the proverbial "why" and "what." In this follow-up post, I want to focus entirely on the "how." But just to recap, this procurement scenario (and broader series looking at procurement in the next decade) is meant as a primer to showcase potential sourcing and operations endstates that may happen -- independently, concurrently and/or sequentially. My main goal in coming up with them is to show, in many cases, how procurement and supply chain organizations are focusing on too narrow a set of areas today and are attempting to respond retroactively to past issues rather than keeping an eye on what the future will ask and require of them. When it comes to technology, it will be critical for procurement to better understand and embrace the building blocks of what is coming down the solution pike.

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Click here for the first, second, and third posts in this series.

The third scenario for our procurement predictions for the next decade focuses heavily on a single topic, one that we cover on these virtual pages extensively: technology. Spelled out, the scenario is still simple: Technology Proves More Than Transformative. Yet how this scenario plays out may in fact prove as disruptive and chaotic as any potential procurement path. During any period of punctuated equilibrium, there are those that can adapt and those that fall off the pace, dropping out of the pack entirely. Here at Spend Matters, we believe that current social and web-based world that is taking shape will look very different in only a few years. And without question, emerging enterprise applications, mobile computing, social "intelligence" and technology democratization will change the possibilities (and priorities) of procurement.

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A number of my colleagues in the Enterprise Irregulars (some of the best minds in enterprise software who have come together to form an informal and loosely affiliated groups of bloggers, thinkers, enterprise tinkerers, etc.) have given Oracle a hard time (not to mention other enterprise software companies and big services firms like SAP, IBM and Accenture) about their products, pricing and related policies -- not to mention their approaches to customer and commercial engagement. Others have as well, including a Gartner analyst (hat-tip: EIs) who recently (and uncharacteristically, for Gartner) spoke what was on his mind about Oracle and others, at least as reported by one publication. Yet I think when it comes to procurement, we at Spend Matters believe that we all should be optimistic about where Oracle is headed and how they're following a path less traveled.

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