In last Friday's rant, I provided a cursory look and analysis of Apple's recent Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report, opining that relatively speaking, Apple is doing as commendable a job of any high tech manufacturer, despite what the naysayers who know nothing about supplier management had to say in critiquing the report (and with the caveat that Apple could be doing even more than they were, making key investments to drive greater supplier management efficiency to increase auditing and monitoring throughput and overall effectiveness). In a series of posts looking at some of the most useful points from Apple's own findings from peering into the practices of their suppliers (both tier one and in certain cases, lower tier suppliers), I'll plan to share a few points that are insightful on their own accord and/or would be potentially helpful in designing and implementing a supply chain auditing and CSR program for your own organization.

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After market close today, SciQuest announced it was acquiring privately held software vendor, AECSoft. According to the announcement, "SciQuest, a leading provider of on-demand strategic procurement and supplier enablement solutions, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AECsoft USA, Inc. and its affiliate AEC Global (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. ... for total consideration of approximately $13 million, consisting of approximately $9 million in cash and stock having a current value of approximately $4 million." Providing further detail on the valuation factoring in an "earn-out" provision, SciQuest also suggests in the press release that they, "may also pay additional shares of stock having a current value of up to approximately $4 million based on successful achievement of certain performance targets over the next three fiscal years."

Our sources suggest the deal is expected to close in the New Year and an integrated product road map will be announced at the SciQuest Next Level event in February. The transaction should prove accretive, owning to AECSoft's profitability and the terms of the deal (our unofficial sources suggest the transaction could add materially to SciQuest's 2011 full year cash flow estimates). In addition, the acquisition will add approximately 30 employees to SciQuest.

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Supplierforce, a Dublin-based supplier information management provider, has entered voluntary liquidation. You can read past coverage of Supplierforce on Spend Matters here, here, here and here (it should also be noted in full disclosure that Supplierforce is an Associate Sponsor of Spend Matters UK/Europe). Spend Matters had the chance to speak with Supplierforce's founder and CEO Declan Kearney about the liquidation filing on Monday afternoon. He shared with Spend Matters that the funding of Supplierforce "has been impacted by the economic issues of the past year". As a result of this situation, the company has gone into voluntary liquidation, a process in Ireland which "enables the appointed liquidator to realise value, on behalf of creditors and shareholders, through the sale of the assets," according to Declan.

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In my first column on Ivalua, I provided a basic company overview and a high-level look at its various solution components; in today's post, I'll take a closer look at Ivalua and its various modules and products.

What stood out most about Ivalua when I first began pulling back the covers was that it doesn't behave like an upstart vendor. For example, despite a total 2009 revenue that was less than some of the largest suite deals in the market (involving historic Ariba, SAP, and Oracle licensing arrangements), Ivalua has struck up a range of partnerships with both SI/consultancies and supply-management content providers worthy of its largest peers. In fact, Ivalua's partnerships with Bureau Van Dijk, D&B/Altares, EcoVadis and others place it at the top of a rather elite list of spend-analysis and supply-risk management solution providers with truly global content-enrichment partnerships and capabilities, running the gamut from basic enrichment to value-added areas (e.g., sustainability).

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Earlier this morning, Aravo announced a $27 million funding round led by Cisco. While you can read the details of the funding round in the above-linked Spend Matters column -- along with some thoughts from the transaction's lead engineer, Aravo's CEO Tim Albinson -- I thought I'd take a few minutes in this post to share my analysis of what the funding round means for this sector. Perhaps most interesting on a superficial level is how with this round, Aravo appears to be migrating away from their supplier information management (SIM) positioning to what they describe as a broader approach to supplier collaboration that encompasses basic vendor management and vendor information management. Of course they summarize this in a three letter acronym -- it must always be three letters, mustn't it -- as enterprise supplier collaboration. Or ESC for short. While this may have a certain branding ring to it, I'm not so sure that moving away from the concept of managing supplier information and leading with the notion of collaboration is the right approach in selling what Aravo does for procurement organizations.

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