15 emerging technologies that caught our eye at DPW Amsterdam 2022

What are the most important developments in ProcureTech right now? Which tools and concepts will help us create new business value while also embracing sustainability? That’s a set of questions we get quite often. Providing definitive answers is impossible. What we can do, however, is share an insight from our work and recent annual flagship conference.

After DPW Amsterdam 2022, here’s a list of the tech that, we believe, has the potential to change the way you operate – in alphabetical order.

Certa

Founded in: 2016
Headquarters: USA
Founders: Jag Lamba

Certa is a SaaS based workflow automation platform that makes it easy for businesses to manage the lifecycle of their third parties.

USP: Certa serves as the orchestration layer that brings together the people, groups, data, and systems involved in the third-party lifecycle journey, breaking down silos via interdepartmental and internal/external process participants.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Future proofing solutions by implementing low-code/no-code technology that allows organizations to scale their solutions as their business grows and their needs change. In addition, process simplification via intelligent automation will be crucial for businesses to ensure they’re staying compliant with evolving regulations and mitigating unprecedented risks.

Circularise

Founded in: 2016
Headquarters: Netherlands
Founders: Mesbah Sabur, Jordi De Vos

Circularise is a supply chain transparency software platform using blockchain to help suppliers in chemicals and plastics, battery materials, and metals to trace materials, share sensitive data with their clients without risking privacy, and automate mass balance bookkeeping and reporting. By extension, it helps brands and OEMs to get visibility into their own Scope 3 emissions, comply with upcoming supply chain sustainability and due diligence regulations, and enable a circular economy in their operations.

USP: Circularise’s software uses public blockchain technology in combination with its patented ‘Smart-Questioning’ technology which enables a secure data exchange for all supply chain actors. Unlike other supply chain traceability tools Circularise’s software is interoperable, secure, and enables no vendor lock-in.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months? Digitisation and technology to improve supply chain collaboration and support companies’ sustainability goals.

DeepStream Technologies

Founded in: 2016
Headquarters: UK
Founders: Jack Macfarlane

DeepStream’s RFx cloud-based platform has revolutionised how all communication is conducted between buyers & suppliers during the source-to-contract process. Moving all users from emails & attachments to powerful technology with market-leading user-friendliness.

USP: DeepStream’s simplified platform allows for all request types to be awarded. Our plug-and-play platform means users can progress quickly with minimal training, gain access to unlimited customer support and unlike other solutions, we don’t lock clients into lengthy complicated contracts.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Procurement is at the heart of how businesses will need to adapt rapidly in a recession environment, to get competitive market prices from suppliers. Businesses that stick with clunky software & endless digital transformation projects will lose out to those who deploy new agile technology delivering on collaboration & spend reduction.

Digitate

Founded in: 2015
Headquarters: USA
Founders: A Tata Consultancy Services venture

Digitate’s ignio™ Cognitive Procurement is an AI-based “Spend Intelligence” solution that continually monitors the source-to-pay process and markets for opportunities to save money, mitigate supplier risk, and improve data quality and compliance.

USP: Ignio Cognitive Procurement looks at spending through the lens of “continuous monitoring.” This means it is always:

• Searching vast amounts of enterprise and market data and generating specific recommendations for category and supplier managers.
• Autonomously screening live requests, purchases, and invoices and flagging edge cases for intervention by purchasing managers.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Autonomous solutions to build business resilience. These blend AI and automation to assist with day-to-day procurement operations. Making the best choices now requires so much data that humans need to outsource data gathering and correlating it to technology.

Globality

Founded in: 2015
Headquarters: USA
Founders: Joel Hyatt, Lior Delgo

Globality is the leader in maximizing outcomes for indirect spend. Leveraging its state-of-the-art sourcing platform, leading companies around the world are able to source with more agility to drive better outcomes. Globality helps its customers move more spend to self-service without sacrificing compliance so that procurement teams can do more with less and move faster. The intuitive, intelligent and efficient software delights business stakeholders while delivering more than 20x ROI.

USP: Globality’s platform makes it easy for procurement to collaborate with their stakeholders throughout the indirect sourcing process — the intuitive, consumer-like experience delights stakeholders and brings more spend under procurement’s control — even with less direct procurement involvement.

What do you think will be the biggest development in your area in the next 12 months?
Procurement will continue to prioritize democratizing the sourcing process by enabling business users to self-serve with agile, intelligent cutting-edge solutions, thus freeing up procurement teams to spend more time on strategic, high-value tasks, and helping drive the business towards optimal outcomes faster and more easily.

LevaData

Founded in: 2013
Headquarters: USA
Founder: Rajesh Kalidindi

LevaData’s integrated AI-powered supply management platform is transforming direct material sourcing, empowering global enterprises to intelligently manage costs, reduce risks, and ensure supply continuity. Many of the smartest supply chains in the world are using the company’s technology.

USP: LevaData provides companies with a significant competitive edge with robust, industry-leading supply chain cost and risk insights, along with customized recommendations on immediate sourcing opportunities to act on.

What do you think will be the biggest development in your area in the next 12 months?
It’s no longer possible for companies to manage thousands of parts and hundreds of suppliers the traditional way. The companies that succeed will be the ones that embrace and utilize technology to sense risks and identify opportunities at scale.

PACTUM

Founded in: 2019
Headquarters: USA
Founders:  Martin Rand, Kaspar Korjus, Kristjan Korjus

Pactum’s autonomous negotiations help companies conduct commercial negotiations on a massive scale. Pactum’s AI-based system implements best-practice negotiation through an easy-to-use chat interface. Pactum’s solution reaches optimal agreements for both parties in minutes, creating between $2M and $11M of new value per $100 million of tail spend.

USP: Most people treat negotiation as a zero-sum game, one in which someone must lose. Pactum changes that. Pactum’s AI automates contract negotiations between businesses and their suppliers and solutions providers, reaching the best possible deal and creating value for all parties.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Procurement professionals will invest in technology such as intelligence automation to streamline and optimize core processes to free up time and resources and add value.

Paid

Founded in: 2019
Headquarters: UK
Founders: Natasha Foster, Tom Howsam

Paid is an intelligent procurement automation platform driving cost efficiencies throughout smaller supplier management, allowing procurement teams to spend more time on the strategic, value-adding tasks, like spend negotiation.

USP: Configurability. Paid’s configurable software means procurement teams win back the time usually lost on supplier admin while retaining their processes, ensuring compliance and keeping control and visibility of their long tail.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
The continued erosion of the ‘all-in-one’ procurement suite as multiple, new, innovative best-of-breed solutions take centre stage to combat supply chain risk, meet growing ESG requirements and continue procurement’s transition into the strategic realm.

Portcast

Founded in: 2017
Headquarters: Singapore
Founders: Nidhi Gupta

Portcast provides real-time visibility on ocean containers to enable shippers to accurately predict cargo arrival times and set the entire supply chain in motion, cutting down on port fees by 20%, eliminating manual work by 80% and eliminating needless delays. Portcast accomplishes this using advanced data sets and proprietary machine learning algorithms.

USP: Portcast aggregates risk and disruptions data from various sources like weather, congestion, geopolitical issues and unforeseen supply chain bottlenecks. We own data quality to ensure there are validations, multiplicity of sources and trustworthy data for ocean shipments. Moreover, Portcast provides best-in-class predictions for ETAs and ETDs as well as complete visibility over ocean containerised shipments.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
We still see many companies struggling with embedding trustworthy data into their procurement. To be more specific on trends, we would highlight these two trends as the key ones:

• Single source of truth of data across procurement, supply chain, customer service and end customers e.g. regarding where performance issues are vs. the spend on supply chains
• Integration of external datasets like disruptions and economic patterns that bring true exception alerts and optimization value when combined with internal ERP data.

Sastrify

Founded in: 2020
Headquarters: Germany
Founders: Sven Lackinger, Maximilian Messing

Sastrify offers automated procurement service for SaaS products, assisting digital-first companies to optimize their SaaS tools. We save time and money for companies by helping them negotiate the best vendor contracts, buy the right SaaS solutions, and keep track of all subscriptions. Ultimately, it’s all about creating the best software setup and simplifying the customers’ SaaS management.

USP: Make SaaS procurement on “autopilot” — all processes are handled by us. We offer companies the opportunity to buy cheaper, less, better and faster subscriptions.

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
All forms of automation (RPA, machine learning, predictive analytics). This has been coming for a while now! Those technologies can help cut the overhead costs, analyze large data quickly, and minimize human errors. Companies can then identify needs, mitigate risks, and track spending.

Scoutbee

Founded in: 2015
Headquarters: Germany
Founders: Fabian Heinrich, Gregor Stühler, Lee Galbraith

Scoutbee enables faster end-to-end strategic sourcing processes with up to 90% less effort versus traditional methods. By providing comprehensive and dynamic supplier data, Scoutbee facilitates proactive sourcing decisions and is trusted by organisations such Audi, Unilever, Siemens Energy – to name a few.

USP: With our centralised data foundation, Scoutbee enables organisations to lower procurement costs, mitigate supplier risk and disruption, and encourage greater supplier engagement. By holistically connecting available relevant data points such as spend, certificates, diversity, sustainability and risk, our AI-powered platform allows organisations to make educated strategic supply decisions.

What do you think will be the biggest development in your area in the next 12 months?
Digitisation and automation combined with an increased usage of AI and sourced data to accelerate business Supply chain leaders take advantage of advanced analytics and AI to augment and automate supply chain processes. 2. Shift from ‘responsive and reactive’ approaches to what Garter calls ‘prescriptive and sensing’ analytics. 3. Increased focus on supplier collaboration, innovation, diversity and sustainability.

SourceDay

Founded in: 2015
Headquarters: USA
Founders: Tom Kieley, Clint McRee

Our supply chain collaboration software integrates with most ERPs and connects with suppliers to automate direct materials purchase order (PO) changes and orchestrates actions to keep supplier execution aligned for continuity of supply.

USP: Our network platform provides:

• buyers and suppliers shared real time visibility across the order lifecycle from requests, plans, and orders through to shipments, receipts, and matching for payment
• real time orchestration of buyer and supplier actions to drive alignment and accountability despite continuous changes on both sides

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months? 
Shared real time visibility and orchestration between direct materials buyers and suppliers.

Vendr

Founded in: 2018
Headquarters: USA
Founders: Ryan Neu, Ariel Diaz, Aaron White

Vendr is the no-brainer SaaS buying platform that pays for itself, saving customers over $250M since we started in 2018. We help the world’s fastest growing companies find, buy, and manage the world’s best SaaS products — saving money, time, and stress. Vendr has processed over $1.5B in transactions from over 2,000 suppliers with customers like Webflow, Canva, and Lattice. Headquartered in Boston with a second office in Charleston and 300+ employees, Vendr is a $150M Series B company valued at $1B.

USP: The most complete end-to-end SaaS buying platform that delivers the highest ROI at 8x. We have the richest data set of pricing and SaaS trends with over $1.5B in processed spend and over 15,000 transactions.  

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Seamless transactions. With transparent contract information and standardization across suppliers, both procurement and their stakeholders will continue moving toward a world where B2B SaaS transactions are seamless and almost consumer-like, ensuring people get the best tool at a fair price fast.

Versed AI

Founded in: 2019
Headquarters: UK
Founders: Fenella Boyle, Simon Baker

Versed AI helps companies by illuminating their supply chains below tier 1, allowing them to identify, monitor and mitigate risk. Whether their focus is preventing disruptions, meeting regulatory requirements e.g. Modern Slavery, or doing responsible, ESG-aligned business, our data helps identify sub-tier exposure. Our technology exposes previously-unknown supply chain relationships within extended supply networks, producing a multi-tier map of suppliers at a speed not possible using traditional mapping techniques.

USP: Our cutting-edge AI delivers easy, relevant, rapid & secure multi-tier supply chain visibility, helping you make better risk management decisions

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Distilling relevant insights from big data underpins supply chain decision-making, with AI a key enabler. Facing geopolitical uncertainty and new regulatory pressures, this “information advantage” will enable proactive risk management.

XMED iQ

Founded in: 2021
Headquarters: UK
Founders: Dieter Zocholl, Markus Maucher

XMEDiQ is the first pan-European marketplace for medical devices – a 140bn € market from simple face masks to sophisticated medical implants. We aggregate never-before-seen volumes of med-device orders from hospitals via a fully integrated sourcing platform and tender them across Europe. Our vision is to become the largest marketplace for medical devices in Europe. Ultimately, we are aiming for fairer healthcare.

USP: We are the first AI based provider to bundle same med products by using price arbitrage across Europe to generate up to 75% or mill. EUR savings for hospitals

What do you think will be the key trend in digital procurement over the next 12 months?
Artificial intelligence to analyse big data sets and make predictions as well as Blockchain to track and trace goods in the supply chain will become very important.