I did not post much in 2022. No need to thank me. Great blog posts–and the kind I do– require free time and non-confidential topics. Both were in short supply this year, especially when the IPO and SPAC markets tanked. Hopefully, the markets (and subscribers) will be more hospitable in 2023.
In the meantime, here are my top three posts from 2022, as ranked by the number of views.
#3 The Forrester Wave™: Supplier Value Management Platforms, Q1 2022
I’d love to point you to this post, but Forrester made me remove it in its entirety! This particular Forrester report, which covered Source to Pay vendors, is freely available from many of the vendors in the report. You can download it here. (With Coupa being acquired, it is especially timely.) Forrester did not take kindly to me distributing the key graphic of the report without paying for the right to do so, as the vendors do. I completely understand. Forrester, and others like them, have highly compromised business models to protect! (Sorry, not sorry.) (Am I using that slang right? I misunderstood the meaning of “Netflix and chill” until recently.)
Forrester probably did not appreciate the gist of my post which was that they were welcome to rename the “source to pay” or “(Business) Spend Management” category whatever they liked–in this case Supplier Value Management Platforms. But in doing so, they should probably rate each of the vendors on the value they provide to suppliers! It’s a little snarky, I admit, but important. None of these solutions drive ROI without supplier engagement and that engagement is accelerated by providing supplier value. Building two-sided applications that appeal to suppliers is hard and increasingly necessary. (I’d also note that their terminology has been picked up by no one.)
#2 Accel-KKR, Long Path, Briarwood to Acquire Basware
My readers love a good story about a take-private transaction in one of the B2B markets I tend to write about. This one fit the bill. Basware is an accomplished vendor in the AP, and to a lesser extent, the procurement market, especially in Europe. Accel-KKR previously owned Sciquest, so it is a logical pairing. Every time a public SaaS company goes private, however, I lose a comparable and possible blog topic which makes me sad.
#1 Tegus: The Upstart in Expert Networks
Yes, the number one post (by far) was about the arcane, expert network market, and how Tegus a new competitor shaking things up in that market. I attribute the popularity of this post to:
- Tegus being a really cool company
- ample publicly available information on their competitors
- the heavy concentration of users of expert networks in my readership (investors and consultants)
- Tegus employees reading the post
- and Tegus possibly sending the post out to their expert network (just kidding!)
In any case, I need to thank Ryan Russell at Avenue Growth Partners for suggesting the topic, it was a sleeper hit.
Enough of the leftovers. Have a great holiday and a great 2023!
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