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?