Issues, Good Practices and Solution ReferenceBook
Digitalization of Purchases

On the cusp of a tenacious global economic crisis, the globalization of business-to-business trade and the digital transformation of organizations, the value proposition of the Purchasing Directorates has changed profoundly. After long being considered the grey soul of the Directors General (i.e. doomed to perform the low besognes towards suspicious suppliers) they gradually became their grey eminences. Within the Comex, they are a strategic engine for the co-development aspects, open innovation, modernization of supplier relations within ecosystems and sustainable sectors, digitalization of purchases, anticipation of changes in economic models... To do this, new talent is needed, but also new tools: the Information Systems Purchases of Tomorrow. You will find the classic functions of spend management, sourcing, piloting tenders or procure to pay. But to properly accompany tomorrow's purchasing challenges, they will have to multiply their solutions and their strike force.

On sourcing, for example, it will now be necessary to have real platforms for detecting talent. Buyers are focused on innovation, but the best suppliers will go to the best of them. Internally, future SI Purchasing will have to position themselves as "de-openers" of organizations, in order to facilitate a complex and necessary collaboration between the key functions of the company that are part of the purchasing process: engineering, marketing, production, finance and of course the buyers themselves. Buyers are also increasingly expected to manage supplier relationships, including risk management. Here, too, IS is an indispensable ally: strategic data (financial, CSR,...), performance indicators, control of economic dependence,... Moreover, in international and matrix organisations, compliance topics are key: how to ensure compliance with the terms negotiated with suppliers, the proper application of contracts in countries, how to control legal risks, ...: all subjects that will be based on a modern IS Purchasing.

Finally, communication remains a strategic issue. Turn tasteless dashboards into a tool for strategic steering and decision-making reporting. In short, publish cockpits Purchases that the CEOs will appropriate! To do this, we need the powerful and intelligent tools that will allow us to move from datamining to datameaning... This work by Acxias is unquestionably a reference in this field. Recall of the issues, market analysis, presentation of the market and solutions ...: it's all there.

It will soon become an indispensable tool to carry out the relevant analyses and make the right decisions to invest in our purchasing information systems 4.0!

Marc Sauvage, President of the National Purchasing Council.

"These are great times... for the buyers!" It is in these terms that we began in June 2013 the launch conference of our previous book: "The e-buyer's white paper". Since then, this book has been given more than 1 thousand free-to-do to purchasing managers and their teams who have asked us to do so or as part of their project. We are proud to be able to contribute, on our scale ("the hummingbird's share"), to the dissemination of knowledge and good purchasing practices in synergy with the optimization of purchasing information systems, supply chain-supply and finance. But how far we've come in recent years! The NTIC (New Information and Communication Technologies) of the early 2000s seem prehistoric, transcended by a "New Digital Revolution" driven by the ubiquity of "devices" (electronic devices) AND the high-speed data networks on which they connect.

This ability to correlate, in real time, decentralized and open-ended needs and resources, wherever and whatever they are, profoundly and rapidly changes the foundations of many trades and sectors: the media, the hotel industry, the transport of people and goods, and tomorrow... finance (blockchains), the creation of custom objects (3D printers), the production and exchange of energy, health, food... this wave will be amplified very quickly by connected objects (IOT Internet of Things) and certainly by the spread of a new model of work and collaboration employers ⟷ employees. In contact with the company's business on the one hand, and the product and service markets on the other, buyers can and must play an essential role in this digital transformation of their organization, anticipating market developments and identifying and introducing the most relevant innovations at the service of their internal customers, and ultimately of their company's customers. Bertrand Gabriel

Thus, "we are now living in a doubly formidable digital age... for buyers." In order to play their role effectively, buyers themselves must be able to rely on an efficient purchasing information system. Even as information is a buyer's raw material, the purchasing information system is its strategic tool to identify and qualify new suppliers that can increase value for the company, measure and drive supplier performance in partnership with internal customers, drive risks, deploy framework contracts and bring spending commitments under control... and above all, amplify the strategic role of buyers by avoiding unnecessarily wasting valuable time spent on activities that create little value (intervening in transactions, going "hunting" for information, reporting, etc.). The rise in maturity and the increase in the value creation of purchases are thus in synergy with the digitalization of purchases, also facilitating the interaction of purchasing teams with its internal customers and its partners, suppliers, without which a company cannot evolve or even survive.

A specialized player in the transformation and digitalization of P2P (Procure to Pay) purchases and processes, Acxias offers this book, which is transformed and enriched compared to the previous edition, to help you better understand the issues, practices and market for digital solutions purchasing and P2P. On behalf of the whole team, I wish you a good read, and listen to you for any suggestions for improvement of this book... and to assist you in your plans to digitize purchases and P2P.

Bertrand Gabriel
Director of Acxias, the digital purchasing expert-P2P

Preface....................................................................................... 03
Foreword.............................................................................. 05
Warning............................................................................ 07

Purchasing issues

The state of the premises........................................................................................................................ 11
The evolution of the purchasing function...................................................... 11
The purchasing direction.................................................................................................................. 12
The buyer................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 13
The new issues................................................................................................................................................... 14
The answers.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20

The contribution of the tools

The functional perimeter.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 31
e-purchase............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 31
The source-to-contract process.......................................................................................................................................... 33
The process procure-to-pay.......................................................................................................................................... 36
The management of purchases................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 39
The management of the relationship................................................................................................................................................... 00
Suppliers................................................................................... 41

The e-shopping solutions market

General trends................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 45
The actors in attendance.............................................................................................................................. 52
Functional changes.......................................................................................................................................... 57

Functional tables

Coverage e-Purchase............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 64
Coverage e-Procurement........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 00
supply Chain Management................................................................................. 66
Coverage Solutions Finance................................................................................................................................................................................................... 68
Business coverage................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 00
networks/Hubs.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 70

The Acxias Barometer of e-purchase solutions - Edition 2015-2016

Presentation..................................................................................... 73
Results........................................................................................... 74
The nature of the project.................................................................................... 74
The objectives of the project................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 75
The choice of the solution ............................................................................................................................................. 76
The budget and the deadlines................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 77
The evaluation of publishers............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 78
The evaluation of solutions...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 83
The balance sheet........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 85
Methodology..................................................................................... 86
Editors' ratings................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 00
and their solution................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 89

The publishers' directory

The partner publishers...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 124
General directory.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 168
Thanks................................................................................... 173
About Acxias..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 175

In order to enhance the value of the purchasing function and contribute to its maturity, Acxias publishes this book explaining the importance of digitalization for the professionalization of the purchasing profession and to meet the challenges that buyers face today. In a globalized economy and a context of chronic crisis, the function is now placed at the forefront of the company's transformation and competitiveness agents. Faced with these challenges, purchasing departments are not only forced to evolve their practices but also to deploy tools adapted to their new responsibilities and the growing demands of their organization and their internal customers. Based on the testimonies of a panel of some of the most mature companies in this field and the expertise of the firm's consultants, the book gives an objective view of the issues, practices and solutions. In particular, the Barometer of user satisfaction with their e-purchase solution highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the major publishers in the market. In particular, companies can rely on this analysis when choosing a tool, and thus improve the success rate of their e-purchase and e-procurement projects. The results also allow publishers to assess their positioning in the market and identify areas for improvement. Thanks to the participation of many players present on the French market, this book also provides an overview of the market in 2015-2016 and offers a detailed overview of the most used solutions. The functional tables of digital purchasing, procure to pay, electronic invoice and business networks are an unrivalled source of information to compare the different offerings and identify the tools most able to meet the specific needs of the purchasing and financial departments. Consolidation movements and the emergence of new players, as well as the continuous functional evolution of solutions and models, will require updating work. This is an opportunity to revisit the challenges that are sure to present themselves to buyers facing ever-increasing performance and competitiveness targets.