EIPP (e-invoicing) and StartUp World

ebdex was formed on 25th Nov 2004 with the idea of disrupting the EIPP market dominated by Accountis and OB10. To be fair, OB10 and Accountis had very low market penetration then (and same is true now). But they were the best examples an ambitious startup could look upon. Causeway’s Tradex and Burns e-Commerce’s Bex were ignored due to various reasons. Number of other models were studied including Ariba, Xign, Harbour Payments, Esker, etc.

At the time, the idea was to develop a product that harnessed the best of Accountis and OB10. The key ingredient taken from OB10 was the hub based architecture. From Accountis, it was the purchase-to-pay and supply-to-cash documents with built-in BACStel-IP payment engine. Accountis was really helpful in guiding us to understand how to build the ebdex Document Exchange. And they did not even know they were helping us.

But fundamental to all this is Mr. Mark Morahan of Morahan UK Ltd (plus Morahan International, etc). I bought in to Mark’s vision of the electronic document exchange concept whilst completing my Executive MBA at Manchester Business School. Mark’s vision was to develop an exchange (he called this MI Document Network) that was simple to use and understand. The idea was to charge both parties of a transaction (supplier and buyer) 25p with no set-up fees or annual maintenance fees. Quite the opposite to Accountis and OB10, not to mention the rest of the market! However, whilst it sounds great on paper, delivery was quite a different story. And this remains the fundamental problem with the concept of e-invoicing to date!

Having studied the incumbents’ models, ebdex looked at ways to innovate and therefore differentiate from the rest with the idea of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage over time. I believe we found a way, which I have not yet seen in any of the products in the market today. Unfortunately, just like Morahan UK Ltd, the company I outsourced to developed ebdex Document Exchange, Affno, could not deliver the technology! Whilst nothing good can be said about Suren and his Affno, various software associations in Sri Lanka continue to promote their works by granting them prestigious awards! How ironical is that?

At the end of 2006, it was the crunch time for ebdex. Do I accept £250,000 debt finance and continue to burn cash hoping Affno will eventually deliver or cut the losses and walk away? At the end, I took the wise decision and accepted that its time to stop beating a dead horse.

In 2007, I attempted to turnaround ebdex into a niche consultancy, but found this extremely difficult due to the past finances of ebdex. What I should have done was to terminate ebdex at the end of 2006 and create a new entity to exploit advisory opportunities. I was emotionally attached to the ebdex brand - with the hope that one day, I will be able to rebuild ebdex document exchange. Letting go was hard. But recently, someone has forced me to make this decision. So it is time to say good bye to ebdex. In the short term, ebdex will remain as a dormant company.

Looking back, I learnt a tremendous amount from ebdex, especially to do with outsourcing. It’s time to let go…Goodbye ebdex…

Technorati Tags: Mark Morahan, Ariba, Xign, JP Morgan Chase, American Express, Esker, Accountis, OB10, ebdex Document Exchange, ebdex, Rhys Jones, Affno, Suren Kannangara

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Without a doubt, Bruno is the master of e-invoicing in Europe if not the world. His e-invoicing Quarterly is a much anticipated update of the e-invoicing market. Whilst I have hoped to do something similar for the UK market, I must admit, I am less organised than Bruno. However, I plan to put my e-mail marketing solution from iContact into full swing this year. If you are interested in e-invoicing and have not subscribed to Bruno’s e-invoicing Quarterly, I suggest you do that right away. Here is a review of what Bruno has written.

1. European Market Outlook 2008

The e-invoicing market continues to remain fragmented and small but with potential to be a significant market. Unfortunately, not much has changed since the early 2000’s except for the increasing number of vendors entering the market place, as reported by Bruno. This is obviously a positive side of a maturing market and has led to minor improvements in the overall market share. However, the optimistic predictions of analysts continued to be missed, year after year. We are still addressing the fundamental problem of replacing paper based solutions with electronic systems. We also seems to have forgotten that our key competitor is none other than paper.

Whilst much has been spoken of supply chain finance and the second p (payment) of EIPP, none of these solutions are going to achieve traction until the fundamental problems are sorted out including the significant barriers faced in implementations. This is not to say that the best-in-class companies, as regularly reported by Aberdeen Group, are not enjoying the benefits of e-invoicing. All I am highlighting is that current deployments are a drop in the ocean, when compared to the potential market size, and significant drive from vendors, consultants and governments are needed if this market segment is to be taken seriously. Lack of profits within the service provider organisations continues to dampen the spirit of the enthusiasm.

Niche players such as OB10 has worked tirelessly to promote e-invoicing globally whilst companies such as Ariba has entered the market as part of its product diversification strategy. The scanning and OCR providers, EDI houses and accounts payable specialists all admit that EIPP is the way forward. Many of these companies I have spoken to remain convinced that EIPP is yet to arrive. I do not think they are been ignorant. If a company does not change to satisfy changing market conditions, the survival of the company will be short lived. Their stand is simply based on customer requirements, i.e. none of their customers are asking for EIPP or e-invoicing. So something is missing from the market place. I put this simply down to lack of awareness which can only be addressed by EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION.

Lately, many financial organisations have taken a vested interest in purchase-to-payment or e-invoicing document exchange. Most of the global leading banks are either offering services through partners or currently in discussion with partners to offer these services. At the same time, there are commercial lending organisations such as invoice discounters and factors taking an interest in the segment. This has also created an environment where traditional vendors for the financial sector is taking a closer look at EIPP, e.g. FundTech. Forrester has claimed this is the year for consolidation. No doubt there will be one or two major transactions, but it is more likely 2009 will be the year for consolidation.

What all of above means is that the e-invoicing or EIPP market should start to make progress this year. More work is needed to encourage service providers to collaborate with each other. I would like to see much more activity at Hub Alliance and other initiatives this year. The problem with Hub Alliance is that there is no budget to drive the “alliance” forward. In addition, the members’ aspirations are limited by their own personal needs, rather than offering a “alliance” for everyone interested in e-invoicing. Whilst I remain pessimistic about the market segment, I am hoping that I will be proven wrong this year.

2. European ExPP Summit

Many thanks to Bruno for organising an exceptional event. Also thanks for the X’mas present, which shows what a gentleman Bruno is! I look forward to participating in this years event. However, my personal feelings for the last year’s event was that it missed a trick. As I continue to say EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION, I felt that the last year’s event was very much organised for the vendor community and not for the potential users. I cannot remember meeting a single person who was looking to purchase a solution. This is also down to the marketing of the event. As an admirer of Bruno, My blog is freely available for any promotion activities of ExPP. This year I can also offer edocr free of charge. A real possibility exists where all ExPP documentation could be hosted by edocr including special interest groups for discussion of various topics prior to and after the event, so that this year’s event become a collaborative event instead of a traditional event. Anyone else got any more bright ideas?

3. Accelya

Thanks for the story Bruno. I must admit, ADP Clearing was not a company I tracked before. As I understood from the story, Chequers Capital has acquired ADP Clearing and has renamed the company as Accelya.  Accelya specialises in invoices, travel reservations, airline tickets, payment instructions and credit card collections, and consider themselves as a leading Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service. This classification put them immediately in competition with large BPO providers and less in competition with niche players such as OB10. With annual revenues of $70 million and over 8 million e-invoicing transactions, further review is necessary to understand their business model and product offering. Level of e-invoicing transactions seems to be low compared to the revenues, suggesting deployment of a less optimum model than the niche players. The web site has a modern feel but significantly lack in information to undertake a quick review. Looks like they have not found out about edocr yet.

4. Partnership between Basware and Crossgate

Ah! This is a story I knew about and planned to cover, but never got the chance. Crossgate is a user of edocr, but Basware has not yet taken the advantage of edocr. Would you believe, I am yet to do an e-mail marketing campaign on edocr to e-invoicing (EIPP) service providers or to anyone else for that matter. All documents related to e-invoicing on edocr can be found from here. I am not going to cover the story now, other than to say that the inter-operator connection allows over 74,000 companies to be reached.

What is uncertain from this press release is that whether this number takes into consideration of companies connected to Burns e-Commerce, Causeway’s Tradex, Asite, Certipost and Laison, who are all members of the hub alliance. Whilst I was providing advisory services to Causeway Technologies in 2007, one of the channel partners I introduced was looking to achieve the same result. Under current arrangements, this company do not qualify to be a Hub Alliance member, as they do not operate a hub.

But if discussions are successful and if they became a partner of Causeway’s Tradex, then they could indirectly exchange purchase-to-payment documents electronically with companies that are connected with any of the Hub Alliance members.

The importance of this realisation is that Hub Alliance should be at the centre of e-invoicing debate and not at the side. You do not need to be a member of the alliance, but simply need to be a partner of one of the members to benefit from the upside. Whilst this sounds all too easy, significant efforts are required to make this successful. I strongly believe its time that Hub Alliance members appoint an independent person to promote and administer the interests of all those concerned. Let’s hope 2008 is the year this happens.

5. Swisscom IT Services with international e-invoicing campaign

Once again, not a story I tracked. Interesting to note is that my friends at TrustWeaver is working with Swisscom to make this transition a success. Trustweaver has significant expertise in the legal requirements of different countries so that their expertise can be leveraged in order to ensure compliance during the launch of services a

cross 20 European companies in the first stage followed by another 20 countries in Europe and the world. Certainly, an ambitious project, and the market needs more of these initiatives to win market share from paper.

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Yesterday, Ariba announced the completion of it’s acquisition of Procuri, Inc. According to Bob Calderoni, CEO of Ariba:

“The acquisition of Procuri is a very positive step for Ariba that builds upon our successful on-demand strategy. On-demand is the fastest growing segment in the spend management market, and Ariba is the clear leader with its share of more than 40 percent. By working to integrate Procuri’s offerings into our already robust portfolio of solutions in the months ahead, we can further extend our leadership and deliver on our promise to make spend management available and affordable to all companies. Procuri had great success selling to both the enterprise and the mid-market, accumulating over 300 customers with nearly 70 percent of them under $5 billion in revenue. Software-as-a-service is something they did from day one, and with that comes a lot of know-how about how to successfully go to market with these types of solutions. Clearly this is something we can leverage at Ariba to fuel continued growth of both our revenue and market share.”

Transforming from a licensed based software to a transaction based model has not been easy for Ariba. Companies such as HSBC will remain on licensed based models, as they have spent significant capital expenditure in large self-hosting solutions. However, the future lies with SaaS, as it makes sound commercial sense, as security and reliability issues are becoming thing in the past. Acquisition of Procuri no doubt will give further confidence to Ariba in terms of delivering on-demand products and services.

Jason Busch, perhaps the only Ariba sponsored non-employee blogger has posted a great blog article on Ariba and Procuri, having spoken to Alex Moissis, Ariba’s new VP of Solutions Marketing and Tim Minahan, fellow blogger and Ariba’s new Chief Marketing Officer. Visit Jason’s blog for the full article here. According to Jason:

• Kent Parker has been elevated to the role of Chief Operating Officer
• Only 3% customer overlap between the two organisations creating a significant up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.

2008 no doubt will be an interesting year for Spend Management and Ariba’s push into EIPP (e-invoicing) in EMEA.

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I missed Jason Busch’s presentation due to computer problems and thought of catching up on the live conversation taking place. Here is a transcript:

• Jason Busch: Hey guys … curious to hear what you thought I should have covered in my presentation, but did not
• Mark Perera: Jason great presentation, thank you very much for your support
• Mark Perera: Jason, do you think a Bloomberg terminal for procurement is on the horizon?
• Jason Busch: Not sure a Bloomberg per-se (procurement is too cheap to pay for one on everyone’s desktop, anyway), but the concept is what fascinates me given its usefulness in the financial markets. Procurement and operations professionals needs this type information ? the question is how will they gain access to it in the future in one place.
• Mark Perera: Jason, do you see Salesforce.com as possible wildcard or simple a platform for future on-demand providers?
• Jason Busch: It would be easy for them to buy an existing provider to get in the sector, but I don?t see the going in the that direction at this point (even though their President is ex-Ariba). The procurement App Exchange strategy is far more innovative than simply doing a footprint/financial expansion deal: http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/category_list.jsp?NavCode__c=a0130000006P6IoAAK-38&
• Mark Perera: Jason, what the risks in taking a ‘best of breed’ approach to procurement technology? Is integration into these different systems a major problem?
• Jason Busch: Integration is becoming less of an issue in large part due to the acceptance of SaaS or On Demand solutions and the fact that there is very little that actually needs to be integrated in a real-time fashion into transactional systems (at least a this point in time). It is not a non-issue, but it?s one that organizations that care about improving their procurement performance should easily be able to get beyond.
• David Lee: Beyond cost savings and cost avoidance, are there any examples of innovation in the marketplace that come to mind.
• Mark Perera: Jason, We have seen a lot of consolidation in the procurement technology space, do you expect to see more of this activity in the next 6 months?
• Jason Busch: Absolutely there’s life beyond cost! Risk management is growing (SAS and D&B are some of the more interesting plays here).
• Jason Busch: There are far too many vendors out there who pretty much do the same thing that need to get rolled-up (both because their investors will get impatient and because the market does not need dozens of providers who do the same thing). So yes, we?ll see acquisitions and roll-ups. But from an innovation perspective, they won?t be terribly interesting (just like the recent deals we?ve seen).
• Sebastien Slek: As Procurement will become more and more strategic for companies, in terms of margin contributor, do you still foresee a future for platforms of exchange between similar competitors looking for best supplier source?

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I plan to attend Ariba’s “Spend Management Day” on 27 November 2007 in London. The event has been designed for Executives and Practitioners with providing practical and actionable information on to improve spend management initiatives including sharing best practices. You can find out more about here. 

According to Kate Roe of Ariba (UK):

“Although Ariba in the US have run Spend Management Days in the past, this is the first time for Ariba EMEA. We have run Solution Briefings before which are half-day sessions targeting a specific solution area such as Spend Visibility. Because of the success and demand of these, EMEA has decided to broaden the scope to cover several areas and run the session over 1 day. We are very excited to be hosting this first EMEA Spend Management Day.”

Two impressive speakers:

1. Duncan Jones, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research - It would be a pleasure to finally meet Forrester’s representative in the UK. Duncan also specialises in EIPP.
2. Stephen Wills FCIPS, MBA, Head of Procurement, AXA

I cannot ask for any better opportunity to get to know Ariba. I will also be meeting Serge Labouyrie, their EIPP Champion early next month. Are you attending this event? If not, what is stopping you from participating? Do share your thoughts. Do you know any other similar events taking place?

I expect to get away by around 5:30pm. Most likely, I will be driving and if anyone would like to meet me afterwards, do let me know. My route M25 -> M40 -> M5 ->M6 -> M56 -> M60. Awful lot of motorways, don’t you think?

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I spent a little while today discussing web-based auto-enrollment payments in the credit and collections industry, as well as what we call the “Payment Tsar” and the “Payment Quotient.” While I was doing so, it occured to me the extent to which electronic financial tools for the individual consumer are changing the nature of expectations and deliverables in corporate financial process optimization.

For example, EIPP has been around, but hasn’t entirely taken off. The technology has obvious advantages, but even major players like Ariba and OB10 don’t exactly have the market penetration that would reflect the service they offer.

But what I’ve noticed is that as customer banking tools are becomming more sophisticated, the expectations for what is possible in the corporate world are driving the discussion in a new and exciting way.

For example, it was the innovators who drove the EIPP technology into the forefront, because they saw the savings and process advantages. However, as more and more people saw they could achieve an enormous amount of visibility into their own finances with on-line banking and auto-bill-pay, now C-Level types are scratching their heads wondering why they can’t get the same Spend Analysis across their entire company.

This issue of innovation-drive is really a key when it comes to solutions available for corporate financial automation. The market, by and large, has not yet demanded the sort of solutions that “put it all together” until fairly recently, which is why Manoj continues to be an EIPP Evangelizer and not yet an EIPP I-Told-You-So-er.

At the same time, I don’t think that day is too far off now. With the acquisitions of Xign and Harbor, and as well the startling growth of OB10, Transcepta and Ariba, it is clear that many in the industry are beginning to believe EIPP and other next-generation tools are the next big step in business process improvement. It is quite possible we’re seeing a serious movement of next-generation automation technologies migrating from “early adopter” status to wide-spread implementation.

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Here is a collection of two recent documents published on to edocr on EIPP and related subjects:

Causeway Technologies: A Case Study describing how a plant hire business, GAP, successfully adopted electronic invoicing solution from Causeway Technologies, and achieved both a reduction in operating costs and an increase in sales.

Paystream Advisors A webinar from Paystream Advisors on reasons why automation pays off, where does Imaging and workflow fit, hot trends in Procure-to-Pay(P2P) automation, learn from the innovators, and getting results.

 edocr also hosts a full collection of public-facing documents from Accountis, in addition to covering Nacha, DDC HRO, Ariba, United Data to name a few.

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According to Justin Fogarty of Ariba:

“Ariba Consistently Outperforms ERP Providers in E-Procurement. When it comes to e-procurement, bigger is not necessarily better. According to the results of a new research brief from independent research firm Aberdeen Group, the flexible and focused offerings of Ariba, Inc. the leading spend management solutions provider, deliver greater value than the e-procurement offerings of large ERP providers. In the report, Aberdeen identified Ariba as the leading solution focused on supply management and noted that companies using Ariba?s solutions outperformed customers of SAP and Oracle in key areas required for e-procurement success. “

The report can be downloaded here. In the survey carried out by Aberdeen, the only area where SAP and Oracle scored ahead of Ariba was integration to other systems. I actually thought given the Ariba’s EIPP offering, they would be in a better position to integrate systems than SAP and Oracle put together. Perhaps further scrutiny is required to understand the definition of integration from Aberdeen’s point of view.

Top 10 success attributes for e-procurement, according to Aberdeen:

• Top challenges
• Supplier enabled
• Spend under management
• Requisition to PO cycle time
• Integration to other systems
• Actual and planned users
• Transaction volume
• Requisition to PO cycle cost
• Provider satisfaction
• Software functionality

Report is nearly one year old. Wonder whether Aberdeen Group intends to review the results and compare new results against this report!

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The 3rd ExPP Summit was held on 10th and 11th of September at Millenium Glocester Hotel in London. I attended both days as a guest of Bruno Koch of Billentis. Bruno who organised the event with Johannes von Mulert of Vereon AG is to be congratulated for hosting an excellent gathering of European e-invoicing community.

In the evening of the 1st day, I had the opportunity to speak to both Bruno and Jahannes. Whilst Bruno brings the e-invoicing domain expertise and industry connectivity, Johannes brings skills and resources necessary to organise such a large event. Together, they have delivered a superb conference packed with users and providers of e-invoicing solutions as well as other stakeholders such as banks, regularity and legislative authorities. Johannes was fascinated by web 2.0 activities in the UK and is attempting to create a buzz in the Switzerland. I introduced him to OpenCoffee concept as an excellent way to promote technology entrepreneurship in Switzerland. I also discussed with Johannes of my ambition to hold two e-invoicing seminars in the UK, one in the North and the other in the South.

This idea was generally well received by number of UK based vendors. My thoughts are of holding an event solely focussing on the corporates, perhaps inviting 30 or so prospects with five service providers. Keep it small, but effective. I know I have the full support of Henry Ijams at Paystream Advisors.

The only criticism I can draw on ExPP Summit is that it was not meant for users of technology but for providers of technology. Whilst EDI has been around for 40 odd years and XML based products has been around for seven or so years, we have achieved very little traction in terms of penetrating the market. According to Bruno, this sits around 3%. If that is the case the priority ought to be “education education education” and not about technology. Especially not about features and functionality. Unfortunately, ExPP Summit miss the opportunity to address this vital issue. Hence my thoughts of organising two events in the UK.

I spent significant amount of time speaking to vendors, notably Accountis, OB10, Ariba and JP Morgan Chase. Ifor Williams of Accountis made some key introductions to those who are trying to address the issue of roaming. I personally do not like this terminology, but 100% behind the desire to interconnect e-invoicing networks.

According to Bruno, there are about 250 vendors operating in the European market, and he predicts this number to increase to 400 in 2009, a 60% increase with 15% market penetration. He also believes most vendors will achieve low penetrations of under 1 million transactions a year, resulting in eventual market consolidation. This belief has resulted in Bruno offering mergers and acquisition services. As you have already read in this blog, I have also discussed acquisition opportunities with one US company recently. I hope Bruno’s prediction will come true. This will certainly increase the level of activities injecting further funding into the sector, which will fuel development of new services as well as expansion both in terms of geographical coverage as well as provision of vertical solutions.

I always consider Bruno as the real guru of e-invoicing. Over the years Bruno has gathered significant market data. I will comment on this later once I get my hands on the relevant slides.

I also had the opportunity to meet Jamie Gunn, CEO of OB10 and Anders Hellermark of Trustweaver on 12th. I will cover these separately, as well as bringing more posts on the Summit. This is really a quick note to cover the event in brief as I have not kept up with blogging recently.

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If you are interested in the future of sourcing and procurement technologies, tune in to Michael Lamoureux’s Sourcing Innovation on 6th September 2007 for the second annual Sourcing Innovation Series, which will run for 2 weeks. 

According to Michael:

One year ago today, the first post of the first annual Sourcing Innovation Series, which focused on the future of sourcing, hit the blog-sphere.  With cross posts from leading bloggers in the sourcing and procurement space like Jason Busch, Tim Minahan, David Bush, Dave Stephens, and Charles Dominick and from forward thinking professionals, which included Kevin Brooks, John Martin, and Doug Hudgeon (a former leading blogger in the space), the series was the first of a number of cross-blog series that turned out to be, in least in my view, a great success.

In the past, I have promised Michael of participation, but failed to deliver at the end. Rather than give false promises again, the best I can do is to let my readers know about the series, Which I have done here.

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Andrew K. Reese and Sarah Murray recently published a comprehensive article on Supply Demand Chain Executive honoring the Supply Chain leaders of 2007. If you are interested in the Supply Chain, I recommend you to read the full article here.

As you very well know, Supply Chain continues to have a significant presence within the Board Room environment. CEOs, CFOs and CPOs around the world now have better tools and Knowledge Workers to help them steer towards Supply Chain Excellence, delivering both bottom and top line results, as well as helping those companies who understand the subject well to achieve a competitive advantage from Supply Chain Excellence.

2007 Pro of the Year - Milton Young, Subsea Global Sourcing Director, FMC Technologies

Practitioner Pros to Know

1. Jean Baderschneider - Vice President, Procurement, ExxonMobil Global Services Company
2. Tim Beauchamp - Senior Vice President, Distribution Operations, Corporate Express
3. Karl Braitberg - Senior Director of Global Demand Management and Planning, Cisco Systems
4. Scott Brown - Manager Supply Chain Analysis & Design, Plexus
5. Steven J. Cassady - Director ? Global Procurement, Kohler Co.
6. Richard Garza - CIO, The Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM)
7. Myron Gramelspacher - Vice President, Global Logistics & Indirects, Greif Inc.
8. Steven Lee - General Manager, Global Indirect Purchasing, The Timken Company
9. Chris Martin - Senior Director, Purchasing, Universal Orlando
10. Dana Mathes - Global Supply Chain Director of Logistics Operations, The Dow Chemical Company
11. Eugene McCabe - Executive Vice President for Worldwide Operations, Sun Microsystems
12. Mary McDaniel - Vice President, Materiel & Corporate Sourcing, FedEx Corporation
13. Robert Moon - Senior Vice President, CIO, LeapFrog Enterprises
14. John Paterson - Chief Procurement Officer, IBM
15. Mitch Plaat - Chief Procurement Officer, Con-way Inc.
16. Peter Russano - Vice President of Operations, Inviro Medical
17. Larry Rydzewski - Chief Operating Officer, Berlin Packaging, LLC
18. Heather L. Sheehan - Corporate Director of Strategic Sourcing and Logistics, Danaher Corporation
19. Harold Upton - Vice President, Strategic Business Processes, Sunsweet Growers Inc.
20. Roger Weingarth - Senior Vice President, Product and Manufacturing Operations, Calix

Provider Pros to Know

1. Demand Management/Forecasting & Planning
   • Robert F. Byrne, president and CEO of real-time forecasting solutions specialist Terra Technology
   • Michael Gilliland, product marketing manager ? forecasting at business intelligence solution provider SAS Institute
   • John Sicard, executive vice president, development and service operations at Kinaxis
   • Charles N. Smart, president and CEO of demand and inventory management solution provider Smart Software
2. Sourcing & Procurement/Spend Management
   • Jay Baitler, executive vice president of office supply giant Staples
   • William Blair, CEO of sourcing and supply chain solution provider Co-exprise.
   • Kevin Costello, chief commercial officer at spend management solutions provider Ariba
   • Philippe Courregelongue, director of consulting services for EMEA at supply and contract management specialist Emptoris
   • William (Bill) DeMartino, director, spend analysis at supply and contract management specialist Emptoris (www.emptoris.com)
   • Charles Dominick, SPSM, president of procurement training provider Next Level Purchasing (www.nextlevelpurchasing.com)
   • Michele Flynn, CEO of business advisory services provider Expense Management Solutions (www.expensemanagement.com)
   • Burton M. Goldfield, CEO of on-demand spend management solutions provider Ketera Technologies (www.ketera.com)
   • Dr. Robert Handfield, Bank of America Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, founded and directs the Supply Chain Resource Consortium at NCSU (scrc.ncsu.edu)
   • Albert Jacobs III, vice president of procurement solutions stalwart Puridiom (www.puridiom.com)
   • Tim McEneny, president and CEO of PurchasingNet (www.purchasingnet.com)
   • Milap Shah, senior director with supply chain technology and consulting firm Global eProcure (www.globaleprocure.com)
   • Jai Shekhawat, CEO and co-founder of contingent workforce management and services procurement software company Fieldglass (www.fieldglass.com)
   • Steve Simko, vice president of operations at procurement services provider ICG Commerce (www.icgcommerce.com)
   • Bilal Soylu, chief technology officer at Verian Technologies (www.verian.com)
   • Ronald D. Southard, president and CEO of Intesource (www.intesource.com)
   • Jim Wetekamp, vice president of consulting and solution strategy at supply management solution provider Verticalnet (www.verticalnet.com)
3. Fulfillment/Logistics
   • George Abernathy, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at lead logistics provider Transplace (www.transplace.com
   • Subhash Chowdary, CEO of Aankhen Inc. (www.aankhen.com)
   • Gary Girotti, vice president with the Transportation Practice at supply chain consultancy Chainalytics (www.chainalytics.com)
   • Rene’ Jones, founder of Total Logistics Solutions (www.logisticsociety.com)
   • Gerald McNerney, senior director, transportation, distribution and logistics solutions at Motorola ? through its acquisition of Symbol Technologies (www.symbol.com)
   • Mark Millar wears two hats as honorary chairman of the China Supply Chain Council (www.supplychain.cn ) and also as director of strategic business development at UPS Supply Chain Solutions (www.ups-scs.com)
   • Dr. Nissim Ozer, chief technology officer at RF Code (www.rfcode.com)
   • Jim Parker, chief technology officer at warehouse management and fulfillment systems provider Supplier Systems Corporation (www.suppliersystems.com), cited as one of the founders of the electronic data interchange (EDI) industry in North America, promotes the vision of a rational, seamless and visible supply chain, from supplier through to end customer, with the supply chain strategically poised to manage the smooth flow of the goods ? and information about the goods ? that ensure the success of the broader enterprise.
   • Ann S. Price, president and CEO of supply chain execution software provider Motek (www.motek.com)
   • Jim Smith, president of Avnet Logistics (logistics.avnet.com)
   • Rick Tucker, vice president of product development with LeanLogistics (www.leanlogistics.com)
   • Mark Wick, co-founder and senior vice president of engineering at Blue Agave Software (www.blueagavesoft.com)
4. Consulting/Analysis/Education
   • Andrew Bartolini, Vance Checketts and Vishal Patel constitute the Global Supply Management Team at industry analyst firm Aberdeen Group
   • Pat Bower, Supply Chain Planning Practice manager with supply chain management consulting services firm Plan4Demand
   • Shoshanah Cohen, Rick Hoole, Hiroyuki Irie and Joseph Roussel, of the Supply Chain Innovation Practice at PRTM Management Consultants
   • Sergio Retamal, president and CEO of supply chain consulting and services provider Global-4PL
   • Tracy B. Stephens, CEO of the Global Supply Chain Management Practice at services firm Resources Global Professionals
5. Enterprise Systems/ERP
   • Joey Benadretti, president of SYSPRO USA (www.syspro.com).
   • Edward (Ned) Blinick, vice-president of sales and marketing at Blinco Systems (www.blinco.com.
   • Donald A. Hicks, president and CEO of supply chain optimization and simulation specialist LLamasoft (www.llamasoft.com).
   • Narayan Laksham, founder and president of lean manufacturing software provider Ultriva (www.ultriva.com).
   • Bob Moyer, president of enterprise product information management (PIM) solution provider FullTilt Solutions (www.fulltilt.com
   • Jeff Nigriny, chief security officer at aerospace and defense industry collaborative business network Exostar (www.exostar.com) and president of data security not-for-profit CertiPath (www.certipath.com)
   • Dr. David F. Ross, senior learning consultant with enterprise application provider Lawson Software (www.lawson.com)
   • Sunil K. Singh, president and CEO of Informance International (www.informance.com)
   • Jeffrey Smith, vice president of marketing at Instill Corporation (www.instill.com)
   • John Zepecki, senior vice president of supplier relationship management at enterprise solution provider SAP (www.sap.com)
6. The Bloggers
   • Jason Busch, founder and managing director of Azul Partners, a marketing consultancy that advises software and services companies, focuses his popular and astute Spend Matters blog (www.spendmatters.com) on all matters related to spend management.
   • David Bush, vice president of business development at on-demand e-sourcing specialist Iasta, offers his daily insights on e-sourcing and procurement best practices at eSourcing Forum (www.esourcingforum.com).
   • John F. Martin, senior vice president of strategy and technology at enterprise services procurement IQNavigator, has spread the word about software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies on his Building SaaS blog (buildingsaas.typepad.com).
   • Tim Minahan, the widely recognized expert (and former Aberdeen analyst) on spend management and currently senior vice president of marketing at on-demand supply management solutions provider Procuri, now champions the strategic role of the Purchasing function at Supply Excellence (www.supplyexcellence.com).
   • Annrai O’Toole, CEO of technology company Cape Clear Software (www.capeclear.com), has authored a blog called “Clear Thinking” that is regarded as an industry resource that cuts through the clutter running rampant in the service-oriented architecture (SOA) space. More at www.capeclear.com/annrai/.
   • John Radko, chief technology strategist with B2B connectivity and integration specialist GXS, promotes the advancement of B2B integration and supply chain automation on his On-Demand B2B blog (blogs.gxs.com).
   • Dave Stephens, CEO of open source e-procurement solution developer Coupa (and former head of Oracle’s Procurement Applications division), promotes “the power of effective procurement” at Procurement Central (procurement.wordpress.com).
7. Former Practitioners
   • Dave Gleditsch, chief technology officer for Pelion Systems (www.pelionsystems.com)
   • Mary Beth Green, director of account management with advanced sourcing technology provider CombineNet (www.combinenet.com)
   • Richard McCluney, vice president of account operations at E2open (www.e2open.com
   • Robert A. Rudzki, president and CEO of supply management consultancy Greybeard Advisors (www.greybeardadvisors.com)
   • Jim Schoessling, VP of supply chain services with on-demand supply chain management solutions provider Click Commerce (www.clickcommerce.com)
   • Jeffrey Wincel, principal partner with lean supply chain management specialist LSC Consulting Group (www.lscconsultinggroup.com) got firsthand experience managing supply operations for Donnelly Corporation and TRW-Vehicle Safety Systems, among other companies, before moving on to the consulting side. His book Lean Supply Chain Management: A Handbook for Strategic Procurement is considered a groundbreaking work in bringing together lean manufacturing methodologies and supply chain management.
8. Supply Chain Greens
   • Dr. Jack Mason, president and co-founder of EnergyWindow (www.energywindow.com)
   • Dan Sanker, president and CEO of logistics outsourcing services provider CaseStack (www.casestack.com)
   • Mark Wysong, CEO of Dolphin Software (www.dolphinmsds.com)
9. Indirect Spend Gurus
   • Mike Boult, president and CEO of StarCite (www.starcite.com)
   • David Clevenger, vice president with group purchasing organization Corporate United (www.corporateunited.com)
   • Joe D’Andria, senior vice president of operations with NewlineNoosh (www.newlinenoosh.com)
   • Priyan Fernando, executive vice president and chief operating officer at American Express Business Travel (corp.americanexpress.com/gcs/travel/us/default.htm), has helped evangelize the need for Procurement organizations to achieve greater control over, and savings from, all aspects of their travel and entertainment (T&E) spend, including the so-called “long tail” of employee business services. Last year Fernando spearheaded the launch of the American Express Intelligent Online Marketplace (AXIOM), an online corporate travel booking platform.
   • Patrick Grady, founder, chairman and CEO of employee business services procurement platform provider Rearden Commerce (www.reardencommerce.com)
   • Gary Hare, president and CEO of supplier enablement specialist Vinimaya (www.vinimaya.com
   • John Matthews, executive director of indirect procurement services provider DSSI LLC (www.directsourcing.com)
   • Jason Treida, vice president of operations, founder and senior partner with e-sourcing software and services provider Iasta (www.iasta.com)
   • Janet A. Whitcomb, executive vice president at services procurement specialist ProcureStaff (www.procurestaff.com)
10. Public Sector Supply Management Evangelists
    • Tom Jones, senior vice president and general manager of supply chain solutions at Ryder System (www.ryder.com)
    • James Kelly, CEO and managing principal with sourcing and procurement services firm JVKellyGroup (www.jvkg.com)
    • Gary Lambert, vice president of consulting with IT services provider CGI Group (www.cgi.com)
    • Raj Sharma, president of supply management consultancy Censeo Consulting Group (www.censeoconsulting.com)
    • Ben Walker, vice president for strategy and client solutions at ProcureStaff (www.procurestaff.com)
11. Service Supply Chain Gurus
    • Greg Baxter, president and CEO of service parts planning and logistics provider Baxter Planning Systems (www.bybaxter.com)
    • Zack Bergreen, CEO and chairman of Astea International (www.astea.com)
    • Dr. Morris Cohen, founder and chairman of the board at service supply chain specialist MCA Solutions (www.mcasolutions.com)
    • Keith Forshew, General Manager of the Supply Chain Solutions Group at on-demand supply chain management solutions provider Click Commerce (www.clickcommerce.com)
    • William Huyler, president of Servigistics Pricing Services at service parts management solutions provider Servigistics (www.servigistics.com)
    • John Reece, president and CEO of ClearOrbit (www.clearorbit.com)
12. Extended Enterprise Gurus
    • Mike Anguiano, president data solutions for vendor management solution provider CVM Solutions (www.cvmsolutions.com
    • Jim Frome, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for EDI outsourcing specialists SPS Commerce (www.spscommerce.com)
    • Mary Gallagher, VP of global professional services with supplier management and procurement automation company SciQuest (www.sciquest.com)
    • Raj Khoshoo, vice president of strategic initiatives at product lifecycle management solutions provider UGS (www.ugs.com)
    • Michael Lyle, president and CEO of InfinityQS (www.infinityqs.com)
    • Rajan (Raj) Penkar, vice president for global solutions and implementation management at UPS Supply Chain Solutions (www.ups-scs.com
    • John R. Sharman, Jr. , president and CEO of Perfect Commerce (www.perfect.com)
    • John Zepecki, senior vice president of supplier relationship management at enterprise solution provider SAP (www.sap.com)
13. Financial Supply Chain Evangelists
    • Joe Juliano, CEO of PrimeRevenue (www.primerevenue.com), has been a thought-leader in the emerging field of supply chain finance, and he has worked to promote the role of Supply Chain in contributing to the enterprise’s bottom line by helping to remove inefficiencies in financial flows that drive the physical and goods supply chain.
    • John Brockwell, global supply chain practice lead for JPMorgan Chase Vastera (www.vastera.com), believes that companies must work to increase efficiency not only across the physical supply chain but across the financial supply chain as well, integrating the two and ensuring that critical information about the value chain is visible across the enterprise to ensure better decision-making.
    • Tom Glassanos, president and CEO of Xign Corporation (www.xign.com), a provider of electronic invoice and payment solutions for accounts payable and accounts receivable, has worked to educate supply chain executives on how enterprises can turn accounts payable into a profit center for the enterprise, emphasizing that, with the right tools, payables can pay significant dividends and increase working capital.
    • Graham R.F. Napier, president and CEO of global trade management solution provider TradeBeam (www.tradebeam.com), evangelizes the importance of the supply chain in executive management during his regular speaking engagements before industry audiences, and he has pushed executives to focus on the value in concurrent management of the physical and financial supply chains, pointing to the opportunities to integrate these chains to take maximum advantage of global trade.

Wow! Importance of bloggers has also been recognised. Andrew and Sarah has certainly done a marvellous job of putting this list together. What a treasure!

Technorati Tags: Honoring Supply Chain Leaders 2007, supply chain management, procurement, spend management, financial supply chain

Popularity: 45% [?]

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Hilton Metropole Hotel, London, UK on 24-25 September 2007

According to Gartner, this summit is for staying ahead of the game whilst been in touch with your clients! Easily said than done! The Summit is split into three areas, these being:

• Business Strategy 
• Operational Excellence
• Technology & Application

Among sponsors are Microgen and TietoEnator from e-invoicing/e-billing/e-Procurement space. Others include:

• BizAgi Ltd (Vision Software)
• BT
• Cordys
• Exstream Software UK Limited
• Infosys
• Omnext
• Tata Consultancy Services
• Thunderhead Ltd
• Zafin Lab

Speakers include:

• Ashley,Gerald - Managing Director, St. Mawgan & Co. Limited
• Buckley,Neil - CTO Retail, Wholesale Banking, Insurance and Facility Management ING
• Carr,John - Chief Operating Officer, HSBC IT
• Clavé,Magí - Director IT Projects/Senior Manager, European Central Bank
• de Jong,Berend 
• Earley ,Annemarie - VP Research Director, Gartner
• Furlonger,David - VP Research Director, Gartner
• Gilmour,Stuart - Head of UK Wealth Application Deliver, Chief Information Office, Barclays Bank
• Harris,Kimberly - VP Research Director, Gartner
• Janssens,Ken - Executive Director, Investment Banking Technology, JP Morgan
• Kyte,Andy - VP & Gartner Fellow, Gartner
• McKibben ,Douglas - Research Director, Gartner
• Newton,Alistair - Principal Analyst Research, Gartner
• Redshaw,Peter - Principal Analyst Research, Gartner
• Schlier,Frank - VP Distinguished Analyst, Gartner
• Sutter,Steffan - Head of Sales & Advisory IT, Deutsche Bank
• Taylor,Martin - LCH Clearnet
• Uzureau,Christophe - Analyst Research, Gartner
• Van Koppen,Thijs - EVP Finance & Operations, Robeco Direct

Let me know whether any of you plan to attend this event.

Popularity: 24% [?]

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These days most of us use Google for search. These are the results one gets when entering “eipp” as search criteria (time sensitive results, as you very well know):

1. ebilling.org- ah, the NACHA’s Council for Electronic Billing and Payment site. Good starting point for anyone interested in EIPP.
2. Forrester - this is Penny Gillespie’s 14 page report published in 2004. Still relevant. Still selling at US$399.00. I call this daylight robbery. Forrester is a genius at making money. This comes down to brand. Would anyone be interested in purchasing similar quality reports for fraction of the money Forrester is charging?
3. Forrester- Andrew Bartels report on Accounts Payable, EIPP, Q3 2005 - Guess what? Its also priced at US$399.00. Again, a relevant report. Not sure why Basware was chosen as the highest-scoring vendor in Europe.
4. Eastern Interconnect Phasor Project - nothing to do with EIPP as we know
5. Accountis - well done to get this position. Is this simply because of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? Or is there more to it than meets the eye?
6. manojranaweera.com- ah, we know about this one, don’t we? Not sure why my chat with Andrew was picked up!
7. webopia - poorly written definition for EIPP. My attempts at coming up with a better explanation on Wikipedia was removed by Wikipedians, as they considered it an unknown subject.
8. webopia - well done to get two places. No better than the previous definition.
9. ZDnet - Written in 2001
10. Spendmatters- ah, Jason Busch’s blog. Nice to see another blog making the top 10.

I ran the same search on another computer at the same time. It produced the same results except for the 10th entry. Both used IE7. Mozilla Firefox produces the same results as above.What happens if we restrict this list to pages from UK?

1. Accountis - well done again
2. Accountis Blog - well done
3. manojranaweera.com - glad to be no. 3 - but for how long?
4. EIPP Conference taking place in September 07 - This is clearly an European event, and not a UK event. Perhaps the site is hosted in UK server.
5. Chief Executive Officer - ah! a paper from Mike Arenth of Ariba advising on accounts payable benefits.
6. ebdex - what can I say?
7. ebdex- I am embarrased!
8. Clerical Med - nothing to do with EIPP as we know
9. ZDNet - white paper on O2C - second article on EIPP. Its not a subject covered by ZDNet
10. TbiConnect - well done Simon - 2nd (ignoring ebdex) vendor on Top 10

So where is OB10, Xign, Bottomline Technologies, Esker, Ariba, Burns e-Commerce, Causeway Technologies, etc? Are they not concerned with web rankings anymore? Is it because most of them only offers EIP (not payment) solutions? Nope! for example, analyse the source code of OB10’s home page and you will find EIPP. Then what? Perhaps, smaller companies are paying much more attention to web rankings than the incumbents. Perhaps there is also the belief that you will not get leads through websites. I disagree. Even in its sorry state, ebdex continues to receive enquiries, from UK as well as from Europe. Is that sufficient to warrant SEO costs? You betcha, it is.

Update 1

Most of these companies seem to optimise their websites on “e-invoicing” rather than on “EIPP”.

Tags: Google rankings, eipp, e-invoicing, accountis, TbiConnect, Spendmatters, Chief Executive Officer, ZDNet, ebdex, webopia, Forrester, Mike Arenth, Ariba

Popularity: 57% [?]

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Andrew Bartolini of Aberdeen Group and I had a phone conversation on past Monday to discuss UK and global trends in EIPP (Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment). If you do not know, Aberdeen Group regularly carries out research in to number of subjects including sourcing, e-payables and supply chain finance to name a few. Their reports are normally sponsored by number of vendors, and vendors such as Xign, OB10 and Ariba regularly brief Aberdeen Group and other research companies such Forrester about their new products and solutions, market strategies and successes. Given that Aberdeen Group is based in the USA with no presentation in the UK market, there has been less understanding of the development of the UK market. And my objective is to clearly address this inbalance. However, Andrew claims that their regional research effort is split into North America (65%), EMEA - predominantly Europe (25%) and Asia (10%)

According to Andrew, there has been renewed focus on complex categories of sourcing (a subject alien to me) and e-payables driven by CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) and CPOs (Chief Procurement Officers). We both acknowledged that whilst there has been solutions on supply chain finance for a while, especially from vendors such as Xign, the real business need at present is to reduce inefficiencies associated with manual paper based processes. Customers are still looking for simpler solutions that they can easily understand, hence the rapid growth of accounts payable solutions that combine scanning, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition). They are growing at a much faster pace than e-invoicing and EIPP solutions whilst best tangible and intangible benefits are offered by hub based solutions with full purchase-to-pay capability.

I used the opportunity to inform Andrew of the UK market including solutions offered by OB10, Causeway Technologies‘ Tradex, Accountis and Burns e-Commerce (and none British players such as Ariba, Bottomline Technologies, Esker, Basware, etc) and minor and new players such as Asite and TbiConnect. We also spoke of accounts payable automation vendors briefly, but much of the discussion was around the Hub Alliance. I am very passionate about what hub alliance is trying to achieve.

We also spoke about the forthcoming ExPP Summit that I am looking forward. Andrew will be coming to London at the back end of September 2007, and it no doubt will give me another chance to exchange notes.

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