Spend Matters Compass Research

By Thomas Kase, Lead Analyst and Jason Busch, Executive Editor, Spend Matters

For Spend Matters, the best SIM solutions in the marketplace comprise a broad range of features. Ideally, they serve as a repository of data for all internal users. A vendor's goods and services or otherwise depends on the outcome of what they provide, regardless of whether these data points cover banking details, purchase orders, goods & services contents, performance management, or other compliance areas. Throughout this paper, we address many of the key underlying technical components that comprise complete SIM solutions as well as decision points and insider "tips of the trade" that we've learned over the years. This is an insider's look at supplier management tools like you've not read before.

By Thomas Kase and Jason Busch

One of the fundamental challenges of supplier information management is that success requires so much greater than just preferred technology and services partners. Spend Matters has written extensively on this topic, publishing seven research reports (in addition to hundreds of blogs) on it in the past two years along. Yet we believed there was still a need for a new type of pragmatic guide to the topic – an implementer's guide to the SIM galaxy, if you will.

In the first paper in this two-part series (Supplier Information Management Technology Fundamentals – Part One) we began to compile our own observations from analyzing, building and rolling out supplier management tools over the years. In other words, the "a-ha!" material we wish someone had shared with us earlier. In Supplier Information Management Technology Fundamentals -- Part Two we continue this analysis.

This paper provides an insider's look at a range of supplier management areas including deployment, infrastructure and software selection tips (e.g., when and where multilingual capabilities count – and when they don't). We also look closely at all the elements required in a supplier information management platform and why they matter as well as configuration options and strategies. Together with Part One, this paper is a true guide for those who have to get their procurement and vendor management hands dirty with supplier information management.