17th November, 2015

The news that Tradeshift was entering into the procurement world sent social media into a flurry of activity when they announced the arrival of Tradeshift Buy recently. Never one to stand still, CEO Christian Lanng said it was something they’d been looking into for the last two years, but had no intention of stepping into the market just for the sake of it.  In fact, he was keen to stress that the drive came from customer demand, pointing out that the company was seeing deep adoption on the payment side and their clients wanted a way to be able to tie up both ends of the P2P process as easily as possible.

And as Christian sees it, there are three main differences which set them apart from some of the more established players in this space. The first of which is Tradeshift Product Engine – a central, searchable database which aims to lower some of the barriers to connectivity. In an environment where fewer than 20% of the smaller suppliers are able to create catalogues, it’s a solution which aims to raise overall visibility and prevent organisations buying blind. And although Tradeshift Buy isn’t entirely doing away with catalogues, it definitely sees a future without them.

To add to that, the Buy Anywhere element offers the freedom to buy from any online source, the idea being to offer a solution that gives users the opportunity to buy what they want, while remaining in policy. Though, as Christian said, usually it’s not that people are acting outside of policy for the sake of it, often they’re forced to because the rigidity of their systems doesn’t reflect the business need. This kind of flexibility includes being able to easily expand buying options with apps that connect to Upwork and Amazon Business, amongst others.

But it’s perhaps the third element – Tradeshift Collaborate - which holds the essence of what the company is trying to do, and part of why the product is being launched now. In some ways procurement functionality hasn’t changed much over the last 15 years – but what you are able to do in terms of technology really has. And that’s been a driver for one of the most interesting culture shifts in the industry over the last few years. The development of ever more collaborative B2B networks has resulted in the decline of some of the more siloed attitudes of the past. With Tradeshift Collaborate, users can add people to their conversations, share product information, update pricing, and build purchase requests together with suppliers. 

And in terms of the platform, it’s this kind of collaborative attitude that’s lead to another interesting break from tradition – the use of third party apps. Tradeshift’s capabilities are boosted by partnerships with the likes of Selectica for strategic sourcing, C2FO for cashflow discounting, Quyntess for supply chain management and latterly, EcoVadis for supplier sustainability ratings.

Of course, pushing a new model to market can have its issues, but Tradeshift have the advantage of drawing on their payments experience, and they have good form here - currently managing an average supplier onboarding rate of around 70%, with about half a million companies worldwide currently connected through the Tradeshift platform. “It all comes down to the basics” Christian pointed out. “All business starts out with a question; do you want to do business with that company? The problem develops when that clear transaction becomes murky, lost in out dated, static information that neither helps the company predict or protect from risk."

It was that realisation that lead to the latest piece in the Tradeshift P2P jigsaw – Tradeshift Risk, launched on 4^th November. Being able to have easy access to real-time, verified data across the whole supply chain – along with a scoring system means that organisations can make informed business decisions, knowing they’re based on fact.

Their strapline “because you don’t eprocure things, you buy them” underlines the company’s attitude of just getting on with things, as simply and effectively as possible. The new Tradeshift offerings, while not radical – certainly are different. And if the demand really has come primarily from their extensive customer base, then as their press release says, it might just have the potential to “disrupt the stagnant eprocurement category.”