Verticalnet (MM) (NASDAQ:VERTD)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2019 to Jun 2024
Verticalnet, Inc. (Nasdaq:VERTD), a leading provider of
on-demand supply management solutions, today announced that the newest
release of its XE Spend Manager application has been deployed to both
On Demand and self-hosted customers.
The Verticalnet XE Spend Manager application provides the
intelligence necessary to drive increased savings through strategic
sourcing. Customers can establish a repeatable process through
self-service on-demand spend analysis and:
-- Efficiently manage and classify spend data on a repeatable
basis
-- Uncover new savings opportunities through volume consolidation
and supplier rationalization
-- Track purchasing and contract compliance through the analysis
of purchase price variances
-- Quickly integrate M&A purchase history to identify procurement
synergies
-- Monitor supplier performance and risk across the enterprise
Verticalnet's previous release of XE Spend Manager was given a top
rating by Forrester Research in a review of competitive supply
management suites. Enhancements in the current release focused on
broadening and deepening the areas which differentiate Verticalnet in
the market. Spend Manager 5.3 enhancements were driven by
Verticalnet's experience across hundreds of successful spend analysis
projects in dozens of industries, and included substantial input from
Verticalnet customers. The new release demonstrates Verticalnet's
continued commitment to provide sourcing professionals with a
self-service spend analysis solution that provides multiple approaches
for classifying their data in a repeatable fashion, and enables the
real-time management of company specific classification rules.
"Verticalnet XE Spend Manager 5.3 is a tremendous step forward for
the sourcing professional," states James Wetekamp, Vice President of
Solutions Strategy for Verticalnet. "The newly delivered
classification exception management module places all of the control
at the finger tips of the sourcing professional. The end-user is
empowered to update classification rules, trigger data changes in
real-time, and manage by exception." Wetekamp concludes, "This
capability, coupled with the ability to classify data from any
language, enables truly global spend analysis driven directly by the
category experts themselves."
Verticalnet designed Spend Manager 5.3 to deliver enhanced
functionality that will minimize the burden on the IT organization,
arm the sourcing professional with tools to manage their categories,
and maximize the percentage of spend accurately classified on a
repeatable basis. Verticalnet Spend Manager 5.3 focuses on the
following two broad areas which are critical implementing a global,
self-managed, and repeatable spend analysis program:
-- Classification Exception Management: The classification
exception management module provides an intuitive control
center for managing un-classified items and suppliers.
Category Managers can quickly browse and create classification
rules and recommendations, applying changes in real-time.
-- Global Data Management: A suite of flexible data management
tools allows for a broad range of information to be managed in
conjunction with spend data. Data Managers can incorporate
supplier attributes such as diversity details, contract terms
including pricing conditions, relevant product details
including inventory positions, and other supply management
information into a dynamic analysis console for detailed
analysis
The Verticalnet XE Spend Manager 5.3 release places complete
control in the hands of the business user, providing the user with the
ability to manage the classification approach, rule-overrides, and the
external data enrichment process. In addition, the Verticalnet Spend
Manager application can adapt to any level of information detail or
data quality, in any language through its support of multiple
approaches to spend classification including statistical
auto-classification and rules based classification to either a
customer-specific sourcing taxonomy or a standard taxonomy such as
UNSPSC,
"Our newest release of XE Spend Manager represents the right
product at the right time for sourcing professionals focused on truly
gaining visibility and control of their global spend on a repeatable
basis," stated Nathanael V. Lentz, President and CEO of Verticalnet.
"Interest in our Spend Manager application has never been higher, our
success in competitive opportunities has never been stronger, and it
is clear that leading sourcing organization lead with spend
visibility. With this new release, we believe that the best product
just got better."
"Our research reveals that data classification is the highest
priority for organizations performing spend analysis," states Sudy
Bharadwaj, Vice President of Global Supply Management Research for
Aberdeen Group. "The ability to immerse the user within this process
to handle exceptions and provide real-time feedback into the process
helps achieve this priority."
Key Benefits of Verticalnet Spend Manager Version 5.3
Classification Exception Management
-- The classification exception management module drastically
reduces the effort necessary to maintain accurate
classifications. The classification exception summaries
provide actionable links to classification exceptions allowing
category managers to quickly access and create rules from
classification exceptions.
-- A summary statistics view of classification details by
business unit provides top-level visibility to unclassified
record counts and unclassified spend totals, to ensure that
the largest exceptions are prioritized for classification.
Additionally exceptions created from the last classification
run are highlighted to clearly identify new exceptions in
comparison to previous exceptions.
-- User-defined parametric filters to classification rules allows
the category manager to quickly create rules in bulk, based on
parameters such as the product, supplier, business unit, or
source system. Additionally, the user can save their favorite
filters for use later in navigating classification exceptions
and creating rules.
Global Data Management
-- The Verticalnet transformation engine enables data managers to
ensure high-quality analysis by applying validation rules to
master data such as supplier data, contract data, and
inventory data or spend activity data. The data exception
editor provides the data manager with direct access to
quarantined records caused by cleansing or validation
exceptions, with a console to adjust or correct data errors.
-- The Extract Summary provides the data manager with an enhanced
view of in-process extracts. Data managers can quickly
navigate files by status such as received, failed, processed,
validated, cleansed, rolled back, and published. Summary
statistic views by data source provide top-level visibility to
record counts, files, and spend activity totals.
-- The flexible master data management system allows for data
managers to define new data sources for the automated data
enrichment of spend information. These additional data sources
can include supplier details such as diversity indicators or
certification levels, contract terms such as list pricing, or
rebate details, and product information such as sales
forecasts or inventory positions of critical materials.
The Verticalnet XE Spend Manager is an integrated module of the
Verticalnet XE Suite which includes:
-- Verticalnet(R) Program Manager--lowers the total cost of
ownership and improves productivity through sound and
re-usable program and process management
-- Verticalnet(R) Spend Manager--a fast, intelligent, and
repeatable solution for identifying, evaluating, and
quantifying enterprise-wide sourcing opportunities while
measuring compliance
-- Verticalnet(R) Negotiation Manager--accelerates and improves
negotiated savings through online auctions and eRFX events
-- Verticalnet(R) Procurement Manager--simplifies and improves
control over the procurement process to help companies realize
the maximum cost savings identified through supplier sourcing
and negotiation
-- Verticalnet(R) Contract Manager--provides real-time insights
into contract obligations, exposures, expirations, changes and
renewals delivering greater control, reducing costly
oversights and minimizing supplier risk
-- Verticalnet(R) Performance Manager--enables companies to
effectively track and manage supplier performance, contract
compliance and identify potential areas of supplier risk
To learn more, please visit us at www.verticalnet.com.