We're happy to announce today that IQNavigator has joined Spend Matters as a sponsor. Without question, IQNavigator remains one of the top VMS and broader services procurement platform vendors in the market, and their commitment to innovation in everything from analytics to true SaaS configurability will be welcomed by Spend Matters readers. Moreover, IQNavigator clearly understands the emphasis companies are placing on adopting services procurement toolsets that encompass not just contingent labor, but broader SOW capabilities. IQNavigator's managed services capabilities also warrant interest, and although the provider remains neutral in delivering services itself or enabling other MSPs with its own technology, nearly everyone we've spoken to continues to put IQNavigator at the top of their shortlists for VMS consideration, including those with overlapping services capability.

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I'm excited to announce that Spend Matters and ProcureCon are in the midst of an active partnership designed to drive additional thought leadership and discussion in the procurement and supply chain area. Even though the announcement has taken some time to get out of the door, we've been working together for a couple of months already and are looking forward to collaborating more closely both on Spend Matters research and at ProcureCon events. As a hint of what's to come, I'm looking forward to participating in an on-stage debate with an outspoken former CPO at a ProcureCon event later this year. We'll also be featuring shared surveys and research as we poll and interview the ProcureCon community about the latest sourcing and procurement trends, investments and activities in the market.

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I'm thrilled to announce this morning that Rearden Commerce has joined Spend Matters as an Associate Sponsor (a certain literary subset of Spend Matters readership may wonder why they did not sponsor MetalMiner, but I'll leave it for the peanut gallery to note the reference). Objectivism aside, Rearden, of whom we have long been big fans of for travel and associated personal services procurement, not to mention T&E, recently acquired Ketera (see past coverage here, here, and here), which has given it a much broader P2P platform capability. As Rearden continues to expand its footprint outside of the personal services and hybrid compliance/concierge role it has played in the past, they have the potential to truly upset the existing P2P applications and connectivity environment. Helping them in this audacious endeavor is a channel/distribution network that typical software/SaaS companies would kill for -- a range of giant travel providers and financial services institutions already serving as a channel (sometimes in white-label manner) for their existing solutions.

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I'm very excited to report that Coupa has joined Spend Matters as an Associate Sponsor. Coupa, which pioneered the notion of extremely easy to use e-procurement for the masses -- from middle market organizations to Global 2000 firms -- has branched out into additional areas like T&E as it has built a broader platform that continues to differentiate itself with an outstanding user interface and differentiated features behind the scenes. Perhaps it's no surprise that by Spend Matters' count, Coupa is adding eProcurement customers faster than any other vendor in the market -- including some much larger neighbors in the Bay area. As Coupa has expanded and accelerated its customer acquisition rate, they have succeeded in moving up-market as well and are getting the attention of larger organizations that previously may only have considered the ERPs and Ariba for P2P. Curiously, a number of organizations that Spend Matters has spoken with in recent quarters have opted for Coupa without needing to do the "Feature 500" comparison with others. Rather, the application and its extremely intuitive interface has sold itself.

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Today, we're excited to announce that CombineNet has become an Associate Sponsor of Spend Matters. CombineNet is a company that has fought back in recent years to become one of the top players in a growing and important market niche, not only taking on new investors and new leadership, but also rolling out an entirely new self-service software platform and quickly gaining a double-digit list of marquis customers using it every day in their sourcing processes. In many ways, this software transformation, as well as CombineNet's recent growth, suggests that the market for a next generation of sourcing product is alive and growing at an extremely healthy pace. And it's about time, given the value these approaches bring!

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A truly unique event happened in Spend Matters' brief history a couple weeks back. One sponsor formally departed our virtual pages for those of a sister-site (though we'll be collaborating with them through another form of broadcast media this year -- more on that in a minute). Zycus, one of the best positioned spend analysis and sourcing providers, became a new Lead Sponsor of MetalMiner. Besides sponsoring MetalMiner, however, they're also underwriting some extremely cool programming that I know everyone in our audience will look forward to seeing.

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For those who have been sitting on the sidelines and wondering about how to reach the largest procurement and supply chain community, we have an actionable solution. A Spend Matters Associate Sponsorship spot has become available.

While all these positions have been filled for the past two quarters -- we limit the number of Associate Sponsors to eight at any one time -- there is now a vacancy. We don't expect this spot to last for long, and there's expressed interest in it already. We've modified the Spend Matters Associate Sponsorship program slightly for 2011 by providing more than just great branding exposure on the blog. There's now a customized thought leadership and demand generation program that comes with. Plus there's also opportunity to gain exposure across all Spend Matters properties and affiliate organizations through the new intellectual property we create with our sponsorship partners.

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I'm very excited to announce that Hubwoo has become a new Lead Sponsor of Spend Matters. Hubwoo has built a strong name for itself in SAP procurement circles, transforming in the past five years from an amalgam of B2B components into a comprehensive provider of cloud-based solutions. Offering both multi-tenant hosted versions of core SAP SRM solutions as well as its own enabling solutions (e.g., invoice management, content/catalog management, etc.) Hubwoo has become a one-stop shop for companies looking to enhance their installed SAP SRM capabilities or migrate to SRM without a behind the firewall deployment.

Moreover, Hubwoo offers a competitively priced and full-featured supplier network offering that's growing fast (we previously noted that in 2010, Hubwoo users sent approximately 6.9 million transactional documents through its "Collaboration Hub," up from 6.2 million in 2009). In addition to the SRM and P2P areas, Hubwoo offers a range of other capabilities designed for SAP customers, including e-sourcing and spend analysis (they're also partnered with another SAP deployment partner in the spend visibility area, Bristlecone).

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It's rare that I get the chance to associate with a group or organization where I see eye-to-eye to on most issues (I think in the software industry, it's next to impossible, in fact). However, when it comes to issues of global trade, sustainability, manufacturing and building the strength of the overall domestic economy, there are few organizations I respect -- and usually agree with -- more than Nucor. For those who are not in the metals business or metals sourcing world, Nucor is best described as the Southwest Airlines of the steel industry. Tenaciously scrappy and decentralized, intelligent, engaging and opinionated: Nucor plays by a new set of rules to win on the local and global stage, and is committed to innovation.

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